A PAGE PROEMIAL.

A YEAR has now passed since, with mingled hope and anxiety, we submitted the first Number of this Work to the ordeal of public opinion. To the reasons which we gave, at the time, for our belief that a Sporting Periodical was required, of a higher character than any that had yet appeared, we coupled the engagement, that the essay on which we had entered should supply that want. After a twelvemonth's trial we come, with all deference, yet, withal, in an honest confidence, to ask, "Have we not kept our promise?" With scarcely a solitary exception, the public press has assigned to the SPORTING REVIEW the first place in that department of periodical literature to which it belongs. In the words of The Morning Post:-" Whether for its printed contents, or its embellishments, it is a Work which far outstrips, in excellence, all its competitors." And with the mention of those opponents, we may be permitted a word concerning the spirit in which we have dealt with them. The competition was, by us, regarded as a race of honourable emulation, wherein we sought the victory alone by the sterling quality of the materiel we brought to the contest. That principle it is our pride steadily to have pursued: we can point with entire satisfaction to our pages, unpolluted by a word that we could wish blotted out, albeit assailed, by one of our opponents, with all the Billingsgate and slang abuse of anonymous dastardy.

To all familiar with the history of our Rural Sports, it must be evident that their details demand, at the hands of those who treat of them, a refinement and intellectuality on terms with the spirit of the times. They still retain a remnant of the coarseness, if not of the barbarity, which once too unhappily distinguished them. We shudder to read, that among the popular pastimes of our ancestors was worrying the horse to the death; our posterity, with equal distaste, will hear of the bear-baiting and bull-running of our own experience.

It is too certain that our popular sports long marched in the rear of civilization; but a few years ago the prize-ring (now abandoned by all save the garbage of society) was upheld by the princes of the land. And whence the reformation?-Men of education turned themselves to the subject. They saw its social importance, and letters gave to the rude elements their first polish. Still we felt how much the cause would be profited, were they, who pointed to better things, among those who "led the way. In the present Work that has been accomplished. The names of the leading contributors to the volumes of the SPORTING REVIEW, which have already appeared, are guarantees for the character and worth of the papers to which they are attached. We have received the aid of those whose social and

sporting condition is second to none. That assistance, we are assured, will "grow with our growth." Such are our prospectsour purpose, which was, and is, to do honour and service to the cause we advocate, we have gratefully to acknowledge has already had its reward beyond our most sanguine hopes.

THE DOVER DAY-MAIL, AND A WORD TO AI ПI п02.

BY NIMRod.

So the Dover road has got something like a fast coach at last, in the new day-mail, driven by two of the Watsons; William, one side, and Joseph the other. I travelled by it a few days back, and, with one or two exceptions, nothing could have been better done; and especially so in my eyes, having so often asserted, that, to get a coach through a country at the rate of ten miles an hour (at which this coach is timed), there is no necessity for what is called "springing the team"-in other words, endangering the safety of passengers by reckless galloping. It was William Watson's day down,-a better and safer coachman never got upon a box ;-and I can, in truth, say, that his horses did not gallop more than two miles, and then only with a hill before them, on all the ground; and his time was kept to half a minute, notwithstanding the road being in a bad state.

But the exceptions. It struck me, that Mr. Chaplin trespasses too much on good cattle, to send his London horses twelve miles, with Blackheath and Shooter's Hills in their faces, and with such a wagonload of luggage as the coach in question carries. Although a capital team, they shewed much distress when taken from the coach at Welling. I should also recommend the assistance of extra leaders three times in lieu of once-on Rochester hill, certainly, from its length. Watson's judgment in hill-work is excellent, and so it had need to be; but there should be no stopping for "bellows to mend," with mail horses. And I must say a word for the guard to this mail. I never saw so quick a skidder. It was "all right" before the coach quite stopped; and no sooner did the wheel turn half round, backward, than it was "all right" again. I prophesy that this coach will never carry the "mad woman," if it be not the best to pay its way of any, out of London.

And now a word to Tos. There is a certain coachman driving out of Dover, said to be equal in execution to any man on any road; and it is my opinion that he is justly entitled to all his honours. Well, I travelled with him a few days back, and what happened? Why, by the want of bearing-reins on his wheelers, the bar of the bit of the offhorse got fast in the pole-hook, and he was obliged to pull up his coach to release him. This, luckily, happened on level ground; but suppose it had happened when we got upon the brow of Rochester hill!! Probably neither he nor myself might now be alive to relate the result; at all events, an accident must have happened, inasmuch as, when a wheeler's head is confined to the end of the pole, the coach, and not the coachman, becomes his master. On my asking this good coachman-for good he is, and one of the best servants in Christendom— whether the doubly-fatal accident, from this cause, on the Exeter road,