The streets, however, swarming with beggars, vagrants, and maimed soldiers, much to the citizen's disgrace and mischief, it was resolved, as a more effectual measure, to appoint City Marshals ; and the committee to whom this appointment was given in charge chose William Sympson and John Read, two able persons-for the consideration of six shillings and eight-pence a-day for them and their horses; and six persons a-piece, of their own choosing, at twelvepence a day each, to attend them, and take some course with these vagrants and wandering people, so as to clear the streets of them. The office of City Marshal originated in this regulation, and became a death-blow to the old "pompous watch," which had been for many years a great burthen to the higher class of citizens, and of much more show than use. However, from this change arose the regular nightly watch, nearly similar to the watch-boxed guardians of our own early days. The plague appeared this year. The city, eager to prevent its dreaded fury, ordered, among other regulations, that the ditch running from Aldgate to the postern of the Tower should be thoroughly cleansed, and a new sewer erected. The Queen, intending to make a progress through the counties of her kingdom, felt the importance of the city, by sending a letter to the lord-mayor, enjoining him to have during her absence a special regard to the good government and peace of the city; for the better accomplishment of which she appointed certain of her privy councillors to be his advisers and assistants, and with whom he was ordered to consult once a week, or oftener. Stage plays and interludes, which were only represented heretofore upon important occasions or pageants, now, in 1574, became a regular profession, and the different places of exhibition were large rooms in inns, and were nurseries of vice and lewdness; to repress which the Common Council passed an act-"That no innkeeper, &c., shall show or play, or cause, &c., within his house or yard, any play which shall not be first perused and allowed by order of the Lord Mayor and Court of Aldermen; and that no person be allowed to play but shall be thereunto admitted by the Mayor and Aldermen.” The public performers petitioned the Queen and Council for licence to act as usual, but, after a full hearing, they could not obtain permission, except under the restrictions of the above act, by which they were also enjoined "not to play on Sundays, nor on holydays, till after evening prayers, and not to act after dark, but to conclude at such time that their audience might return to their dwellings before sunset." What would become of all our play-goers now, who never think of beginning their evening's amusement until long after the hour that saw their wise ancestors in bed, if such salutary acts were put in force against our actors, who play nearly half the night? The Lord Mayor and Magistrates so bestirred themselves against vice and immorality in the city, that at the assizes then held in the city there was not one criminal to be tried. A quaint letter, from the talented William Fletewood, recorder, to the Lord Treasurer, then with the court at Buxton, shows how justice had been administered heretofore. He says "The only cause that this reformation taketh so good effect here about London is, that when, by order, we have either justly executed the law, or performed the Council's commandment, we were wont to have either a great man's letter, a lady's ring, or some other token from such other inferior persons as will devise one untruth or another to accuse us of, if we perform not their unlawful requests. But now the Court is far off, and here we are not troubled with letters, neither for reprieve of this prisoner, nor for sparing that fray-maker. We nip vice in the bud, we punish petty thieves; and when the assize cometh we have no great ones to try." The increasing power of the city was shown in 1567, Sir Roger Martin being Lord Mayor, who brought the Bishop of Ely to arbitration, for questioning his right of civic authority over the tenants in Ely-place, claiming them as under his jurisdiction. The StarChamber decided the question in favour of the gallant knight ;a wonderful triumph in those days. In consequence of the extortion practised by the poulterer, the corporation regulated the market at the following prices : In 1577, Mr. William Lamb, citizen, did an act that deserved the sincere thanks of his fellow-citizens, by conveying, at his own expense, the water through leaden pipes from the upper end of Red Lion-street to Snow-hill. This conduit was taken down in 1746, to make room for the erection of the Foundling Hospital. Lamb's Conduit-street still points out the site. The worthy citizens, growing opulent upon the increasing commerce, gradually became more luxuriant in their tastes and extravagant in their dresses, for we find in the year 1579 it was deemed necessary to restrain their prodigality, and a proclamation was issued by the Queen against excess of apparel, gold chains and cloaks, the latter of which had so increased, by rivalry, that they reached down to the heels. By the same proclamation, the length both of daggers and swords was limited-the first to twelve inches beside the hilts, and the latter three feet only. A survey, as it was called, being made in 1580, it was found that the foreigners in the city and liberties were six thousand four hundred and ninety-two, being considerably more than double what they were at the survey thirteen years before. Two thousand three hundred and two were Dutch; one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight were French; one hundred and sixteen Italians; English born, of foreign parents, one thousand five hundred and forty-two; of other nations, not specified, four hundred and forty-seven; and of nondescripts, two hundred and seventeen. This great increase, it was feared by the wisdom of that period, would soon make so small a space as the city dangerous and difficult to govern, and the capital too vast for the size of the kingdom, and also that of not being able to provide for such an immense multitude fuel and other necessaries at a reasonable rate. This was productive of a remonstrance from the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, against the vast increase of new buildings and number of inhabitants within the city and suburbs of London, chiefly occasioned by the great resort of people from abroad and all parts of the kingdom to settle there, which it was imagined would prove of dangerous consequence both to London and the whole nation, if not timely remedied. Her Majesty listened to this prayer, and accordingly issued a proclamation, by which it was ordained and strictly forbidden to erect any new buildings within three miles from the city gates, where no former house could be remembered to have been by any one living, or to suffer any more families than one only to be placed, or inhabit, in any one house. And when the next Lord Mayor went to take the oath in the Exchequer, the Lord Treasurer charged him to strictly enforce the said proclamation, because, said he, "there will, from increase of people, arise an excessive price of victuals and fuel, and danger of plague and infection." Could he have looked forward a century or two, how groundless would he have seen his fears to have been! In the year 1582, the London apprentices, unwilling to be behind their masters in the increasing fopperies of the time, went such lengths in swaggering and apparel, that the Lord Mayor and Common Council found it necessary to make a special enactment to clip these roystering youths of their gay feathers, and accordingly decreed-"1. That no apprentice whatsoever should presume to wear any apparel but what he receives from his master. 2. To wear no hat, nor anything but a woollen-cap, without any silk in or about the same. 3. To wear neither ruffles, cuffs, loose collars, nor anything but a ruff at the collar, and that only of a yard and a-half long. 4. To wear no doublets but what are made of canvas, fustian, sackcloth, English leather, or woollen, without any gold, silver, or silk trimming. 5. To wear no other cloth or kersey in hose or stockings than white, blue, or russet. 6. To wear no other breeches but what shall be of the same stuff as the doublets, and neither stitched, laced, or bordered. 7. To wear no other than a plain upper coat of cloth or leather, without pinking, stitching, edging, or silk about it. 8. To wear no other surtout than a cloth gown or cloak, lined or faced with cloth, cotton or baize, with a fixed round collar, without stitching, guarding, lace or silk. 9. To wear no pumps, slippers, or shoes, but of English leather, without being pinched, edged, or stitched; nor girdles, nor garters, other than of crewel, woollen, thread or leather, without being garnished. 10. To wear no sword, dagger, or other weapon but a knife; nor a ring, jewel of gold or silver, nor silk in any part of his apparel, on pain of being punished at the discretion of his master for the first offence; to be publicly whipped at the hall of his company, for the second offence; and to serve six months longer than specified in his indenture, for a third offence." And it was further enacted, "That no apprentice should frequent or go to any dancing, fencing, or musical schools, nor keep any chest, press, or other place for keeping apparel or goods, but in his master's house under the penalties aforesaid." 407 THE BYE-LANES AND DOWNS OF ENGLAND, WITH TURF SCENES AND CHARACTERS. BY SYLVANUS. CHAPTER XIII. - A Racing epitome proposed. - Athelstane the first noted Racing man. — The BEFORE we proceed further with our racing adventures-or are tempted to step again "out of line," we propose taking a general or bird's eye-view of our subject, and to offer a slight memoir of the Turf and its dramatis personœ. The first great man who figured on the Turf, according to the authority of Mr. Strutt, in his "Sports and Pastimes of England," was Athelstane! The last celebrated name we have on record, vide "Bell's Life," is that of Mr. W. S. Crawford. A good many notables, it is safe to affirm, have intervened between the ninth and nineteenth centuries, to exhume and show up a few of whom we now essay in earnest. From Henry II. to Oliver Cromwell, with his celebrated Coffin Mare, including the reigns of two or three of the Edwardses, Bluff King Hall, James I., and the Merry Monarch, we have not many return lists worth quoting from. Charles II. seems to have had a horse at Newmarket, and really to have imported Arabian mares to put to the English horse; having bred an animal named Dodsworth from this judicious cross, whose pedigree ranks as the oldest in the stud-book. From this facetious personage, the taste for racing descended to the second James, William III., the "Royal Dane,"-Queen Ann's Consort-in whose reign the Darley Arabian, and the Curwen Bay Barb" appeared, to the " Finished Gentleman from top to toe "George IV. In one of the reigns preceding that of the Prince Regent-the celebrated Godolphin Arabian, and old Tregonwell Frampton, the earliest Leg on record, appeared. The former, the property of Earl Godolphin, was the founder of our best blood in horse-flesh; whilst the latter vicious old rip was the progenitor, it is presumed, of a set of men, namely "Legs," whom an old writer on Turf matters describes as "the most unprincipled and abandoned set of thieves and harpies whoever disgraced civilized society." Frampton was an accomplished scoundrel and thorough rogue, although a wealthy man and Master of the Horse in several reigns, and has all the appearance of villany in his features, if a portrait we have seen of him in an old mansion in Yorkshire at all resembles the original. The old wretch is there drawn coolly superintending the castrating of his horse Dragon on the very race-ground, in order to qualify him for the race in which he had, as it is currently recorded, to struggle mangled and bleeding and humiliated as he was. George IV. outstripped all his royal predecessors on the Turf, and succeeded in forming a magnificent stud during his racing career-breeding Whiskey, the sire of Eleanor, the winner of both "Derby" and "Oaks," and possessing many other first-rate animals. At Hampton Court stables were to be seen the Colonel, Waterloo, Tranby, and Ranter-stallions; also the celebrated mares, Maria, Fleur-de-lis, Posthuma, and others in foal to such horses as Sultan, Æmilius, Camel, and Priam, the best blood of that or any other day! The Prince of Wales (George IV.) won the Derby in 1788, when only six and twenty years of age, and in less than three years' afterwards, was actually "warned off" Newmarket Heath by the Jockey Club, because his horse Baronet, an outsider, if so he could be called with only 20 to 1 against him-won the "Ascot Oatlands" from Escape-the favourite in the royal stable-and a fair field supposed to have been tried to beat all England, and of course his Royal Highness into the bargain! The imputation of Turf fraud was never satisfactorily proved against the Prince to our thinking; and the innumerable instances of horses running "in and out," or being fit or otherwise, when the most unlooked-for results have occurred, irrespective of all intent or malice prepense, go far to prove the Jockey Club to have been simply bitten as betting men, through the accident of Baronet's winning from being fit on the day; his owner having backed him heavily, no doubt, as he did everything for the off-chance. This, the Jockey Club in a manner acknowledged by making overtures to the Prince to return to Newmarket ;-overtures, he indignantly and contemptuously refused. The jockeys of his Majesty, George IV., were the Duke of Dorset, then Lord Sackville, a most accomplished horseman and admirable judge of his animal, and at one time of his life in constant practice; Jem Robinson, the nonpareil of match-riders, and second to none from a stud to the finish over the B. C. or A. F. (the Beacon Course and Across the Fleet at Newmarket) the late Sam Chifney, Dick Goodison and South. He finally engaged George Nelson from the north, better known amongst his familiars as the "Admiral," as droll a character over his "clay" and "cold without," the season of course concluded, as ever sat in pig's skin. Old George, a first-rate horseman in his day, was almost a match for poor Bill Scott in repartee and slangy badinage over the smoking fire, and only "shut up" when Bill, with mock gravity, and a look no room could withstand, addressed "His Majesty," and asked him "how about Escape and the Grey Diomed dodge!" him as The trainers of "our fat friend" were, at one day, Neale and Casborne, but latterly William Edwards of Newmarket, who had a pension for his services and the use of the royal stabling. His favourite race-ground, after leaving Newmarket, was Bibury, where he appeared on his cob as a private gentleman, being the inmate of |