range of the edifice between the spectator and the tower, the Chapel of Our Ladye being in the immediate foreground. At our feet lie numberless memorials of the dead, which—

"With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd
Implore the passing tribute of a sigh."

This ground was a place of sepulture long before the Conquest, and has only recently been closed by Act of Parliament. On the margin of this cemetery a Roman sculptured grave-stone was discovered in 1860, close to the foundations of the New Corn-exchange. This relic has since been placed in the Public Grounds adjoining the Water Tower, for the convenience of visitors wishing to inspect it.

Deferring our special notice of the Cathedral until a more convenient season, we shortly find ourselves at the end of Abbey-street, and immediately over the Kale Yards Gate. This postern leads to the Kitchen Gardens, or, as they were called in Chester, the Kale Yards, which formerly belonged to the Abbot and Convent of St. Werburgh. The archway was made for their convenience, by permission of the citizens, in the reign of Edward I., to prevent the necessity of bringing their vegetables by a circuitous route through the East Gate. A defunct ropery, timber yard, and infant-school now occupy the spot where monkish cabbages and conventual kale in old time grew. A few paces farther on was a quadrangular abutment, on which formerly stood a tower, called the Saddler's Tower, from its having been once the meeting-room of the Company of Saddlers. This tower was taken down in 1780, and the abutment which marked the place where it stood was demolished in 1828.

While on the subject of the Walls, we may mention a mouldering old turret, familiarly known three hundred years ago as Newton's Tower; but it is called at the present day the Phoenix Tower, from the phoenix, which is the crest of one of the city companies, ornamenting the front of the structure. Over the portal is the following announcement:

"KING CHARLES Stood on this Tower

September 24th,* 1645, and Saw

His Army Defeated

ON ROWTON MOOR."

*

As we once more look up, and read yon quaint yet melancholy inscription, our minds will of necessity revert back to that sad September day, when Charles the First stood on this very spot and saw his gallant cavaliers borne down by the grim soldiers of Oliver Cromwell's army. For three years he had maintained a doubtful contest with his Parliament, and though for a time the success of his troops in the western counties had given a fitful gleam of prosperity to his sinking fortunes, the tide had now turned, and one disaster followed another in quick succession.

(To be continued.)

*The date upon the Tower (September 24th) is an error of the mason's the battle actually took place on the 27th of September.

A RIDE BEHIND DEXTER.

The control that Mr. Bonner has acquired over Dexter is truly wonderful. Those who have been acquainted with the horse would not believe in the change without seeing it. As is well known, Dexter has always been very free with his heels. His playful moods bordered on the vicious; and he has had a fashion of lashing out somewhat savagely at those who came too close to his quarters. For this reason, strangers have viewed him at a respectful distance, and trainers have handled him with the utmost caution. Notwithstanding he was in Doble's hands so long, the driver never ventured to take any liberties with him; for it is to be presumed that a horse so strongly muscled can kick with unusual force. But Mr. Bonner is always good at experiments; and by kind and firm measures he has made himself master of the situation. On Saturday last we saw him pinch Dexter in the flanks, rub him on the inner surface of the thighs, and then wind up by crawling under him and between his legs. No one ever before dared to be so familiar with his kingship; for his playful moods were generally in the ascendency, and at such times he was continually on the qui vive to land a foot in somebody's bread-basket.

"You have Hamiltonized him, have you not ?" we asked, as we saw Mr. B. taking these liberties with the horse.

Partially," was the brief but smiling reply. "Look at his head: see how broad he is between his eyes. Dexter is a horse of sense; and I have conquered him, not by brute force, but by appealing to his reason." A sound theory, simple as true. When hooking him to a waggon, Dexter has always had a fashion of striking out, first with one foot and then with the other, very often to the inconvenience of grooms and damage of wheels. But Mr. Bonner has thoroughly broken him of this habit. On Saturday we saw him stand, like an old plough-horse, between the shafts, while the traces were fastened. And, viewing these things, it occurred to us that no horse is naturally vicious—that he is made so by treatment. And when you find an animal seemingly vicious, the surest way to conquer him is by gentle measures which appeal to his understanding.

All ready, we stepped into the waggon with Mr. Bonner; and in driving up the avenue to the Park, and through the Park, Dexter lifted his head with spirit. Nothing escaped those bright eyes of his, since the bridle was blindless; and he moved forward with the utmost confidence and gentleness, swerving neither to the right nor the left. Sometimes, when a horse was passing him, he would prick up his ears and feel of the smooth bar bit, as much as to say, "My place is in front"; but a soothing word from his owner, and he was quiet again.

As Dr. McCosh, the president of Princeton College, remarked, to see how marvellously Dexter is muscled you must sit behind him. Such immense development of propelling and lasting power is without parallel in equine history. The Doctor is a great admirer of the horse. and justly so, since his father was a large breeder, and the youthful days of the now learned collegiate president were spent on the farm, among the colts of pure lineage, ripening day after day into maturity -a maturity of bone, muscle, endurance, speed, and, greater than all,

intelligence. Dexter has had regular work all winter; consequently his muscle is more prominent now than ever before at this season of the year; and his flesh is firmer, since there is no superabundance of fat. With two weeks' preparation, he would be ready to trot a

severe race.

As we drove through the park, Mr. Bonner said: "Now, Mr. B., you see there is no danger in sitting behind a horse like this. A few weeks before the inauguration, you may remember that General Grant was out with me, sitting in the seat you now occupy. Just after a brush on the lane, the General remarked, in his quiet way, Mr. Bonner, the people do not understand Dexter. Would you believe it, I had a score or more call on me, in addition to letters received, urging me not to accept your invitation to ride behind his kingship to-day. They argued he was a vicious horse, and tried to impress upon me the great calamity that would befall the country should I be suddenly removed from worldly strife on the eve of accepting the office of President. To all I replied, 'You do not know the horse as well as I do. I have been behind him before, and I assure you I have passed unscathed through hotter places."

"And then," continued Mr. Bonner, "I told the General that numerous gentlemen, solicitous of his welfare, had called upon me that morning, trying to convince me that I was endangering the peace of the country by tempting him (the President-elect) to ride behind my runaway horse, Dexter. But I silenced them all by the simple argument: 'Gentlemen, I have as much at heart the interests of General Grant as any of you. Did I regard a ride behind Dexter perilous, I should not ask him to share it with me. As an evidence of the confidence I repose in the horse, allow me to explain that I take out behind him my wife, the mother of my children.' But you see, Mr. B., that this is no runaway brute.'

Out of the road and we were away with the speed of the wind. Three times did Mr. Bonner urge Dexter to a break that he might demonstrate to us the ease with which he could follow him up. How perfect is the machinery! What wonderful motion ! No friction, but as smooth and noiseless as the most delicate and freshly-oiled machinery! How swiftly we get over the ground! It is the swoop of the lightning without the roar of the thunder. At no time were the lines tightly drawn. Did you ever see Doble drive the marvel? Taking a firm hold on the lines, the trainer would brace himself in the sulky and pull as if his life were at stake. And you could not resist the thought that should vital strength give way, should the muscles of the arms weaken, Dexter would be away, mad, terribly wicked, and uncontrolable in his might and fury. You who have seen him in such times as this, look now, and mark the contrast. The lines are loose on his back, and yet he is flying along at the top of his speed. A wave of the whip, and a sharp cry, and he is off his feet, apparently as angry and irresistible as the mad rush of the hurricane. Now a gentle pull on the lines, and a soothing word, and he has regained his stride a horse full of gentleness and power.

"The result of kindness and reason," smiled Mr. Bonner. "You see there is no waste of nerve force, there is no choking sensation by hard pulling on the bit; his flesh is firm, and it will not require ex

hausting work to prepare him for a race; his muscular development is full; and for these united reasons he should be able to trot faster than ever this summer. What do you say?"

And we could only reply that the argument was sound, that the conclusion was most plausible.-New York Turf, Field, and Farm.

AUSTRALIAN

HORSES.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPORTING MAGAZINE."

SIR,-You will doubtless have seen, in common with many readers of the Sporting Magazine, a paragraph which has appeared in some of the London papers, reprinted from a South Australian Journal, that so great has been the increase of the wild horses in the far interior of the vast grazing grounds of the colony that they have become a nuisance from their number, intrusive inroads, and depredations on the cultivated lands of the colonists.

Long troubled with a plethora of beef and mutton, it would now appear that the Victorians and South Australians are troubled with a plethora of horses, and to such an excess, that, being amply provided everywhere with horses for all agricultural and domestic purposes of draught and the saddle, as well as breeding purposes, for want of near and ready markets for the disposal of their unwelcome equine visitors when captured, they are so wholly at a loss to turn them to better account that they sell them gladly at the scarcely credible low price of one penny per horse!

This mode of utilising the superabundance of the products of the colony, if it be true, is not very illustrative of the commercial sagacity or enterprise of the settlers in those happy regions, who assuredly might do better with their spontaneously created equine wealth by taking example of the Guacheros of South America, and shoot if not lassoo them to salt their hides for exportation.

There used moreover to be a demand for Australian horses in India, where they were not only preferred to the native horses for cavalry and artillery remounts in the latter days of the East India Company's rule, but also by reason of their lower cost-price, inclusive of their transport charges; and I recollect some years ago the resort to their importation to Bengal as remounts for those arms of the Company's service at the recommendation of Sir Walter Gilbert, a distinguished cavalry officer at that time in the service of the Company.

In a report which he then drew up in reference to the breeding-studs that had been for some years established in Bengal by the East India Company, with a view to ensure the improvement of the breed of horses throughout their provinces, and the establishment of internal resources for the production of remounts of a superior description for the cavalry and artillery, Sir Walter Gilbert considered those breeding-studs of the Company as then organised a failure. He had come to this opinion from the fact that the colts which had for some years been bred there

had been found generally deficient in substance, courage, and ability to endure privation, qualities especially required in all cavalry horses, especially in a country and climate such as that of Hindostan. Hence he objected on several grounds to stud-bred horses; for although some few, and those about the best ever turned out by the Company's studs, were handsome horses, they were yet more or less deficient in some respects on those points which Sir Walter Gilbert, with good reason considered objectionable for cavalry and artillery remounts, viz., in want of bone, breadth of chest, and inability to stand hard work.

A further defect which he attributed to them was, uncertainty of temper, one perhaps somewhat less valid as attributable to any particular breed of horses; for though individual subjects of any breed may and must naturally differ in regard to temperament, yet the vicious development of temper in colts of Eastern and Asiatic race is more frequently the product of the rougher, more irritative, and often malicious treatment of the European groom and soldier as compared to that of the Asiatic; and if the strict injunction to observe a kind and friendly handling of their young horses was constantly imposed as an irrefragible rule of stud and stable discipline, there would be very much less development of vice in all horses European or Eastern.

But as in most breeding studs at home or abroad, it would seem that in those of the East India Company at that time in Bengal, the primary object of their establishment had been quite lost sight of under the frequent laxity and change of superintendence that crept in. The breeding means were insufficient to supply the annual number of remounts which was required by the Company for those arms of the service, and this arose, as I learned subsequently from an Anglo-Indian cavalry officer who had been in the Imperial Austrian service, from employing stallions of inferior blood, many of them country-bred horses, and putting them to mares ill adapted for the purpose because a sufficiency of suitable mares was not to be found in the breeding districts. Whereas, had the company imported a large-size high-bred caste of Arab sires, and put them to the best description of country mares, a very different kind of produce might have been confidently looked for.

Sir Walter Gilbert was, as I have said, a great advocate for the importation of Colonial (Australian) bred horses for the East Indian military service, and his advocacy found at the time considerable favour and justification from the published opinion of veterinary-surgeon Fitzherbert Knight on the qualities of Australians for artillery and cavalry purposes.

In reference to the powers of these, his observations are as deserving of attention from the present Indian Government as they then were to that of the company.

That gentleman, while alleging that his short experience in India would not permit of his offering any opinion in regard to Australian horses in India, or their capabilities to endure fatigue in that climate, confined himself strictly to the knowledge he had gained with regard to them in their native climate. Passing first in review their quality for speed, he thought it a subject on which little need be said, since the records of the turf had demonstrated that the Australians had at all events equalled, if not surpassed, their competitors on the Calcutta race-course. As regarded their strength, he could affirm that the