F U 1N.


 THE LAY OF THE LEGER.
 S,- H JONES," says GREEN,
 To-day, I ween,
%'-. ': Of all days in the year,

 On which is run
 The race at Doncastere."
 Says GREEN to JoNES,
 "The fact I owns;
 And added, with a grin,
 ~ I on that race
 0 Last week did place
 o tA small amount of tin."
 S ~ Says JONES to GREEN,
 "I, too, have been
 Induced to lay some cash;
 A trifling sum,
 On Kettledrum,
 It can't be very rash,
 Because the prophets all declare
 No claims a button's toss

 Particular fine 'oss."
 From these small scraps of conversation
 'Twixt JONES and GREEN,
 It will be seen,
 That neither had the least foundation,
 For pride concerning education;
 Being, in short,
 The kind of sort
 Of coarse young man who says he's pretty 'arty,
 Prefers a game at skittles to 6cart6,
 And calls Miss AmY SEDGWICE a "fine party."
 Touching the prophets; by the way,
 The profits were not touched that day
 In quite the manner which they should have been;
 If Kettledrum had won, they would have been.
 Serene sat folks, their thumbs they coolly twiddled,
 When, horror as CHARLES MATTHEWS says, "he diddl'd."
 The prophets,-yes, their unanimity
 Amounted almost to sublimity;
 And people slept
 Secure, and kept
 Themselves till late tucked in their dimity,
 Until the sun, which hadn't shone for days,
 Burst through the blinds, and rose them with its rays ;
 And JONEs had gone to his pal GREEN'S snug rooms,
 Reeking most awfully of back fumes ;
 And after falling over his friend's boots,
 And calling him the laziest of brutes,
 GREEN woke; the conversation which we gave
 At first, then followed, and GREEN 'gan to shave.
 The "trifling sums they'd both laid out,
 Np doubt,
 Were much more than they could afford.
 No lord
 Could revel in more spicy shirts than JONES:
 GREEN had one little weakness,-devilled bones;
 Which sounds a cheapish luxury, no doubt,
 About
 Two in the morning, though they're apt to make
 A person very much inclined to slake
 His thirst, rum, brandy, whisky, punch or gin with;
 Or with the morning's milk,-which he goes in with.
 Each of these friends
 You see, then, spends
 Much more than he is warranted in doing;
 And as GREEN'S rather grimy old landlady,
 Whose English is on most occasions shady,
 Observes, "Them two is going to their ruing !"

 Fly, gallant 'oss,
 To-wards King's Cross,
 The station is in view;
 Fetch him some knocks
 Upon the 'ocks,
 Gee-up, gee-up, jo-hu.


[SEPTEMBER 28, 1861.


 At last we're there,
 Ho take thy fare,
 Which 'tis but eighteen-pence;
 A florin, see,
 To prove that we
 Are regular born gents.
 Two tickets here,
 To Doncastere,
 First-class, return: here, porter,
 A coup ? Haven't got one. Aint you,
 Really? then, you oughter.
 And JONES and GREEN
 Were squeezed between,
 Two betting-men, who smoked and snuffed and swore,
 And spat about a good deal on the floor,
 And with huge feet, by no means light as feathers,
 Scraped all the polish off GREEN's patent leathers;
 Then hitting JONES a blow, a rather hard 'un,
 On his new hat, politely begged his pardon;
 Which JONES acknowledged, with a feeble grin,
 While GREEN shed tears and rubbed his wretched shin.
 No matter, thought the pair,
 These things will all come square,
 When Kettledrum
 Shall winner come,
 First part the judge's chair.
 "We'll drown in champagne all these petty annoyances,
 Finish at PADDY's,"
 Terribly sad is
 It now to reflect all this rattle and buoyancy's
 So short lived,-the wine-cup, which promiseth sweet,
 Is doomed to be dashed with the gall of defeat.
 Who shall describe the splendid race,
 The thumping "thuds," the slashing pace,
 The whirring rush, the panting throng,
 All eager for the "denoumnong;"
 Patrician faces flushed with hope,
 Plebeian ones with yellow soap,
 Young ladies tinged with colour hectic,
 Old boys becoming apoplectic,
 Each calm detective, like a sentry,
 Alert for the "light-fingered gentry,"
 The eager shouts, the waving hats,
 The grand excitement of the flats,
 The bets of gloves made by the belles,
 The mild emotion of the swells,
 Who shall describe the medley lot,
 Somebody may, but we can-NOT.

 Without his host has everybody reckon'd
 For Kettledrum is beaten,-come in second.
There was weeping and wailing,
And much bitter ale-ing,
By GREEN, who was seen hanging on to a railing,
Some miles from his home, in the dead of the night,
Calmly telling the moon he was really all right;
While poor JONES wept aloud, and declared that a blight
Had hung over his race since the days of his youth,
When he'd slipped on the ice and knocked out a front tooth.
 To end my tale,
 Of what avail
 Can any prophet be,
 What is their use,
 None but a goose,
 Like JONES and GREEN (-and mne;
 Yes, I admit I lost a pound,
 The fact I do confess;
 That's perhaps why my remarks are found
 Just tinged with bitterness).
 Who'd ever think of risking gold,
 Upon the word of one
 Who's just as likely to be sold,
 Dead taken in, and done,
 And fall a victim to a monstrous diddle,
 As any anti-sporting indiwiddle.
 But, most of all, ne'er hope to pay
 Your debts by making books;
 Whatever betting men may say,
 Their sometimes seedy looks,