The Express.
London, England, 1862-06-05 00:00:00

lettes are prepared to captivate the pamere-by, and

- -
to imbibe the dust of the roads.

The railway

slalom are besieged, the roads are blocked up with
an indescribable variety of vehicles ; and by three
o'clock the vast expanse of the Downs is black with
a hundred thousand straining spectators, and all to
witness an affair which takes about two minutes

and forty or fifty seconds, more or lees, to come off.
At the end of that time the public feel like the
barber when he raised his head out of the basin,
and ask themselves, can this mighty event or train
of events, which agitates all England and half
Europe for half a year, have at last been disposed

of in two minutes and forty or fifty seconds T
Never, perhaps, was the premonitory excitement
greater than on the approach of this year's Derby.
It was to be the Exhibition Derby, the Derby par
excelkace, and people had come from the remotest
corners of the world to see it who had never seen a
Derby before. All that was required to make the
isiat complete was fine weather and means of
transit, and in both particulars the Exhibition
Derby was favoured beyond all its predecessors.
The oldest inhabitant had never seen a finer day on
the Downs—a bright sun, a clear sky dotted with
a few fleecy clouds, and a gentle breeze that put
everyone at his ease. The Japanese Ambasesdors
came down in their lightest bombazines, and the
President of Liberia and his sable retinue were

actually obliged to open their white waistcoats.
The troops of Parsees who walked from the rail-
way to the Downs, and from the Downs back to
the railway again, for once wished that their tre-
mendous high hats had leafs to them to keep out
the sun and the dust. By the way, why is there so
much dust on the road to Epsom 7 Is it considered
to be part of the fun, and could the visitors
not look upon it as a real Derby-day uuless
they had been half choked in the road out,
and three-quarters smothered on their return 1
Why must the road to Epsom be as bad as the
French picture gallery in the Exhibition, where
the duet is said to be a device of perfide Albion to
prevent the triumphs of French art being seen to
advantage. A very small expense in watering-
carts would make things pleasant all the way, and
a. trifle would be sufficient to quell the aimuom in
the short ride from the railway to the Downs. The
dust was more opaque than ever yesterday, And
never was it kicked up by a greater number of
vehicles. As we made our way to the railway
station we found the Elephant and Castle looking
like • beleagured fortress, or the halt of a caravan,
so great was the number of vehicles clustered
round to tempt the unwary strangers to try the
perils of the road. We saw several, laden with
courageous foreigners, start at long past one o'clock,
and, looking at the kind of cattle that were to draw
them, the probability was that they would arrive on
the Downs somewhere about five, if ever, when the
event of theday would have become matter of history.
The fact is, that the railway, with its admirably
organised arrangements, has now so completely
established its superiority, that to go by the road
would be something like the civic procession
"taking water" in their venerable Buoentaur,
when the whole of the municipal wisdom can be
conveyed from Blackfriars to Westminster so much
more rapidly and safely in • penny steam-boat.
The secret of " doing " the Derby comfortably is
to go late and come away early, when the whole of
the bustling, the pickpocke.a, the confusion, every-
thing except the dust and the roasting, may be
avoided.

When the fly driver lets down his fare at what
he calls the nearest spot to the Grand Stand, being
as near as possible about half a mile from that
home of refuge, the fare, if he be a stranger and
has read Mr. Borrow's interesting works, must
imagine that he has been suddenly dropped in the
middle of a gipsy encampment. Be is overpowered
with attention, and solicited to a varied and abun-
dant hospitality. Seven or eight active young men
insist ou simultaneously brushing his coat, and a
whole detachment of the yellow brigade point
reproachfully to hie boots, the necessity of polishing
which has become a self-evident fact. Canvass
portals lie invitingly open, and "Jemmy Walsh,
the Second of Tom Sayers," calls attention to moun-
tains of roast beef, flanked by trim plantations of
bottles of bitter beer. The stranger may yield to
these blandishments and refresh, and if he is wise,
lie does so, because he has his work to do before he
breaks into the open. There is a narrow passage
in which the people are continually surging one
way, whilst the police as persistently charge in the
opposite direction and the unhappy individual who
gets into the vortex is sure of having his corns pul-
verised, may expect to have his shins kicked, and if
be should be finally " bonneted," he must not be
surprised. As we made our way yesterday, subject
to all these pleasant contingencies, we could not
' help wishing that the Japanese embassy had a
similar opportunity of testing the strength of their
museular system, or that some of the French
correspondents could see how cheerfully
Britons could take an amount of punish-
ment which would create a revolution in
Paris. The Britons only laughed at it, those who
bad corns despised them, and others whose shins
had Leen kicked couldn't stoop down to rib them,
and even the bonneted martyrs mildly pushed up
their hats, and made a feint of calling for the
polio°. Bet it was worth it all, and the struggle
only made the joy more enjoyable, to burst out
upon the glorious Downs, and see the sun, and the
country, and the hundred thousand people, alto-
gether forming a picture which could be seen
nowhere but iu England on the Derby Day. The
grand stand was crowded from the roof to the
rags, and the minor and more fragile erections
visibly tottered under the weight of their well-