others will describe. It is too much to expect of one whose
mission has been the whole day long on the streets.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE VIGIL OF THE DERBY.

In those days--happily now gone by--when public strangulation was the
mode in Merry England, there was always an evident fascination
appertaining to the spot where, on the morrow, some guilty wretch was to
expiate his crimes on the gallows. Long before the erection of that
elegant apparatus commenced, and generally on a Sunday evening, when
decent citizens had newly come from houses of God, where they had heard
the message of life, crowds began to collect on that central spot in the
heart of the great City dedicated to sudden and violent death. The
coming event seemed to cast its shadow before; and throughout the night
the roisterer or belated traveller made a detour to visit the human
shambles. I confess to having felt the attraction. I could not then
bring myself to be present at the strangulation proper; so, as the
nearest approach to a "sensation," sometimes visited Newgate on the eve
of the victim elect's last morrow. In the same way, being unfortunate
enough to be London-bound on the day of our great annual holiday, and
having heard graphic accounts of the Downs on the eve of the Derby, I
determined that year, as I could not go to the race by day, to visit the
racecourse by night. Let me own the soft impeachment: I am not a racing
man--not in any degree "horsey." When I do go to the Derby it is to see
the bipeds rather than the quadrupeds; to empty the hamper from Fortnum
and Mason's, rather than to study the "names, weights, and colours of
the riders" on the "c'rect card." If you prefer to have the sentiment in
Latin--and there is no doubt Latin does go much farther than English--I
am not one of those "quos pulverem Olympicum collegisse juvat," except
in so far that "homo sum; nihil humanum alienum a me puto." It was to
see humanity under a new aspect, I took the last train to Epsom on the
eve of the Derby.

In order to combine business with pleasure, and economy with both, I
took a third-class ticket at Victoria, and was fortunate enough to find
a compartment already partially occupied by a nigger troupe. In this,
which under ordinary circumstances I should have avoided, I took my
seat, and was regaled all the way down with choice morceaux from the
repertoire of my musical friends. The "talking man" of the party, too,
enlivened the proceedings by a