out," "

This, we repeat, is in its way a tit-bit, the swallowing and proper digestion of which, by men who have money as well as mouths, may save the former, and keep the latter laughing on the right side. To our mind, the little paragraph is a perfect panacea for preventing the not-very-pleasant operations which go under the names of "forking ""pulling a long face," and looking a long while in vain for certain gentry on your book, who are invisible on a settling day. We shall conclude this desultory, "do-nothing," December concern, by tacking on to it the published list of prices, at the respective periods specified, wishing our readers (every one of whom we hope will drink The Turf" with ten times ten), a merry Christmas, a happy new year, and a most successful season. And to secure the latter desideratum we must say, at the risk of being deemed egotistical, our system of betting, so as always to come off a winner, ought to be studied.

A thin attendance, and very little doing; too little, indeed, to require more than a list of the prices.

DERBY.-7 to 2 agst. Scott's lot; 8 to 1 agst. Colonel Anson's Attila; 9 to 1 agst. Colonel Peel's Chatham; 25 to 1 agst. Mr. Dixon's Ballinkeele; 33 to 1 agst. Mr. Wreford's Wiseacre; 50 to 1 agst. the Duke of Grafton's Canadian; 50 to 1 agst. Mr. Ramshay's Moss Trooper; 50 to 1 agst. Mr. Goodman's The Rover; 1000 to 15 agst. Mr. Herbert's Nessus; 660 to 10 each agst. the Duke of Grafton's Canadian and Lord Jersey's brother to Phoenix, in one bet.

OAKS.-14 to 1 agst. Mr. Bowes's Lass of Louton; 30 to 1 agst. Mr. Vansittart's Raffle.

DRAWN BY H. ALKEN, AND ENGRAVED BY H. BECKWITH,

We lead off this month with No. 1 of a series of illustrations, which we have arranged for the Sportsman, from the pencil of the well known "Alken," wherein the difficulties of the chase are most graphically delineated. It will scarcely be necessary for us to say anything lauditory respecting the talents of the artist, as the subject speaks in language that cannot be mistaken. It is our intention to follow up the "difficulties" in all their diversified and spirit stirring forms, with which we feel assured our readers will be highly enter tained, as they are genuine characteristics of the incidents by flood and field, which ever and anon accompany the fox-hunter.

Talk of sporting difficulties, it has been well said that the foxhunter laughs at them, whether they be physical or moral. Mr. Kitely, noticed by Nimrod, will not suffer his animal load of two-andtwenty stone to debar him from the pleasures of the chase, where he shines equally as a man of mettle and of weight. Capt. Pell of the navy, also noticed by the same sporting chronicler, spite of a wooden leg, stops at nothing when in chase of a fox; but, on the contrary,

H