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styled, where there was any number of them collected from every point of the compass for hire; and thus Jack was as good as his master—for the time, at all events. T h e "croppers" along the road were innumerable. Still there were very few broken limbs, either because the nags were not in the humour for bucking, or the road was soft and yielding. This was also the period of pleasant and enjoyable picnics, and around by the bottom of the hill, embedded in thick brushwood, were scattered groups of people, of every age and condition, partaking of the contents of c r a m m e d hampers and baskets, and ready to hail every passer-by to " c o m e and share pot luck." A s a rule there used to be not only more eating in proportion to the attendance, but a great deal more drinking than now, and a drunken row was the inevitable wind-up after the racing was over. There were special constables to keep order on the course in the vicinity of the Stand and the run in; and a party of mounted police, and as many of the town and country constabulary as could be spared for the general supervision of the place. There was no such thing as a temporary lock-up for tipplers; but a readier, though less comfortable, m o d e of detention was devised, and this consisted of two or three bullock chains welded together and stapled to a tree, and to this, very unlike " Orient pearls at random strung," the apprehended Bacchanalians would be manacled by one wrist. Here the restrained toper might fret and fume as he liked, and the punishment often amounted to torture from the broiling heat of the sun or the pelting rain; but, wet or dry, it was all the same, for the chain remained a fixture until evening, when the prisoners were marched into town by the police, headed by the Chief-Constable, travestying the triumphal return of some R o m a n conqueror exulting over the living spolia he had secured in the wars. S o m e of the race rows occasionally terminated seriously for the belligerent powers, and often afforded an opportunity for squaring the score of an old feud or gratifying private revenge. A ruffianly system of way-laying on or off the course was once introduced ; but some convictions following, the transportation of one would-be-murderer for life, and the imprisonment of two or three lesser culprits, put a stop to such a cowardly and brutal practice. A s for the racing itself, its quality improved by degrees, and the performances of such crack horses as Petrel, Bunyip, Bessy Bedlam, Merino, and others remained indelibly inscribed in the early sporting annals of Port Phillip. U p about the Stand, by the river bank, and on the Flat, the h u m of busy life buzzed merrily about, and the adroitness of industrious rascality was not idle. T h e bookmaking craft had not yet come to the front, and, as there was little or nothing done in sweeps, the honourable occupation of the "welcher" had no scope. T h e pickpockets were, however, efficiently represented, and they took good care to make their hauls in thefield; for though the return steamers might present ample opportunities for dishonest harvesting, the passengers, though full almost to overflowing in a certain sense, almost unfailingly left the course with very empty pockets. T h e broad-fakers, the magsmen, and the thimble-riggers affected the racecourse, and the unsuspecting were accordingly victimized without scruple. It would be difficult to say when gambling on the Melbourne racecourse first m a d e its appearance-probably with thefirstregular meeting there in 1840. This was before the era of the bookmaking and welching tribes, and the police of the period used to m a k e spasmodic efforts to suppress any overt acts of "spielerism" and "thimble-rigging." They, however, neither scotched nor killed the snake, which lengthened its coils every year, and at the race gathering in 1847 it is averred that no less than seventy notorious gamblers were in professional attendance. A s there was then no enclosed "Hill," and the winning-post was by the river side, the m a g s m a n and rogue operated on the Flat, where divers and sundry other "flats" of the kind specially wanted were willing victims for sacrifice. O n the second day of the races a thimble-rigger was caught cheating in flagrante delicto, and it was proposed to rope and drown him in the Saltwater River; but the timely arrival of some special constables saved the scoundrel from a fate which he almost deserved. T h e following morning he got three months on a tread-mill, then in good working order at the gaol In the way of amusement, thefirstattempt at originality emanated from the brain of an eccentric blacksmith k n o w n as " O l d Cooper," w h o devised what he was pleased to denominate an aerial machine and it paid him well for two or three meets. This curious fabric was a wooden abortion, buflt something after the model of an unwheeled, hoodless perambulator, capacious