The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-29 00:00:00

four year olds should carry lOst 21b, five year olds llst 61b,
and six year olds and aged horses 12st, and that they should
run four mile heats. So long as that system was tm intained,
we had retained our supremacy in the breed of he rses ; but
by some unfortunate influence lighter weights and shorter
distances had been introduced, and from rear time the de-
terioration of our breed of horses had gone on. Mr Dicken-
son went back 40 years; but when Lord Redesdale had in-
troduced a bill on the subject in 1860 in the ether house, he
stated that the same complaints had been made as long ago
as 70 or 80 years of the decrease of stoutness and soundness
of our horses. In the same debate the Earl of Derby had
traced the gradual diminution of the test demanded of horses
until its culmination in the light weight handicaps of the
present century, and of the great number of two year old
horses,which every man must deplore, He believed this was
brought about by the desire of those who had the direction
of tuof matters to induce a great number of persons to come
upon the turf; but it was altogether incompatible with
s'och a system as would retain a breed of stout horses,
He (Mr P. Wyndham) was aware that a great many per-
sons would deny that such deterioration had taken place ;
but they had such evidence to prove that the horses of
former days ran distances of six miles or four mile heats,
carrying 12st and 13st, and that they remained on the turf
five years, as to leave no doubt on the subject. Horses in
those days performed such tasks that if they were imposed
upon modern horses would inevitably kill the animals,
'As a proof of the structural alteration which had taken
place in our modern breed of racehorses, the hon. member
referred to well-known faithful portraits of famous race-
horses of the last century, which were more like hunters
than the modern racer, though they were thorough-bred.
The hon. member quoted General Peel against handicaps,
as encouraging trickery, and showed that the proportion of
two-year-old horses on the turf to three-year-olds had in-
creased 2 to 8 in 1829, while in the present year the propor-
tion was 81 to 7. He complained that the conditions under
which Queen's plates were run at present pleased nobody.
The distances were not long enough, nor the weights heavy
enough, for those who wished to see the old stout breed of
horses encouraged ; while, on the other hand, they were not
sufficiently modernised to be in harmony with the present
system of racing. He contended that some alteration should
be introduced by which a class of horses capable of improv-
ing the general breed should be encouraged.
Sir J. SHELLEY seconded the motion.
Mr NE WDE GATE thought the introduction of railways
had something to do with the deterioration of the breed of
horses. Agreeing with the hon. gentleman who had brought
forward the motion, he suggested that no Queen's plate
prize should be run for unless the sum so given was doubled
or trebled by subscribers. In this way he thought many
good horses that were now exported might be retained for
the improvement of the breed.
Sir R. PEEL said that abolishing Queen's plates
would do away with a certain amount of encouragement
for people to run their horses. He trusted the hon. mem-
ber would not press the motion to a division. The noble
lord at the head of the Government had authorised him to
say that the Government, in conjunction with the Master
of the Horse, with whom rested the power of regulating
weights and distances for the Queen's plates, would con-
sider what alterations could be introduced to test to a
greater extent the power of horses competing for these
plates. He did not think, however, that heavy weights
and long distances would be attractive to the public. He
saw a right hon, gentleman opposite who, he trusted, would
be able to inform the house that the breed of horses had not
deteriorated, He hoped his hon, friend would not press
his motion, as the noble lord at the head of the Government
had given him an assurance that the question of weight
and distance would be taken into consideration, with a
view of seeing whether the object of his hon. friend could
not be attained.
General PEEL entirely disagreed from his hon, friend,
that the breed of horses had deteriorated in this country ; on
the contrary, he believed there had never before been a
breed possessed of so great powers of endurance and speed.
He might claim to speak with some authority on that point,
having himself been a breeder of horses for 40 years. He
objected to the abolition of these Queen's plates, because
there was no other prizes for which old horses could run,
and he further objected to increasing the distance and the
weight, because if they did so to any great extent none but
common hacks would be entered.
Mr GREGORY agreed with every word which had
fallen from his right hon. and gallant friend. In con-
demning these races the house would condemn the very
best thing for keeping up the breed of horses. He wished to
maks a remark respecting the way in which the Queen's
plates were distributed in Ireland, Out of the 15 in that
country 11 were run for at the Curragh. That produced
very considerable inconvenience, for it often happened that
a horse went to the Curragh for one week and took away
all the prizes. Now he wished, not that all these plates
should be removed from the great centre of racing, but that
three or four of them should be sent into the provinces, and
that they should be run for wherever there was a proper
race-course.
Mr. FOLJAMBE complained of the great extent to which
the breeding mares were sent out of the country.
Lord PALMER STON said he entirely agreed in what
had fallen from the right hon. and gallant gentleman oppo-
site (General Peel). lie differed altogether from those who
contended that the breed of horses had deteriorated; on the
contrary, he thought the general breed of horses was better
as to substance and power of endurance. Any one who
went into a racing stable and noticed the size, build, and
substance of the horses could hardly wish for anything
better in those respects, The fact was, that greater pains
were taken in the present day to force on a young horse.
But there is one immediate test, and that had been men-
tioned by his hon. friend. If the breed of horses had dete-
riorated, foreigners would not come to England to buy our
horses; but the complaint was that every year more and
more people came from abroad to purchase horses in Eng-
land. (Hear, hear.) That was proof that the English
horse was a good horse. In regard to the particular motion
before the house, he had no objection to say that the ques-
tion should be considered by the Master of the Horse, who
would communicate with the bast judges of turf matters, in
order to ascertain whether a return to greater weights and
longer distances would not be advisable.
Mr. P. WYNDHAM then withdrew his motion.
WEIGHING OF GRAIN (PORT OF LONDON)
BILL.
Oa the motion of Mr CRAWFORD, the following
gentlemen were nominated the select committee on this
bill—Mr Crawford, Sir John Shelley, Mr Alderman Rose,
Mr Ayrton, and Mr Francis William Russell, and five
members to be nominated by the committee of selection.
BLEACHING AND DYEING WORKS ACTS
EXTENSION.
Mr, BRUCE obtained leave to bring in a bill to place
the employment of women, young persons, and children,
in the occupations of finishers, hookers, lappers, and
makers-up and packers in warehouses under the regulation
of the Bleaching and Dyeing Works Extension Act.
ELECTION PETITION ACT (1843) AMENDMENT.
Sir C. O'LOGHLEN obtained leave to bring in a bill to
amend " The Election Petitions Act. 1848," in certain
particulars,

ELECTION PETITIONS BILL.
The adjourned debate on the amendment on going into
committee on this bill was resumed by
Sir F, GOLDSMID, who said he hoped to satisfy the
house that this was a bill which ought not to receive its
assent. It was founded upon principles unjust and contra-
dictory. The hon. gentleman was proceeding with his re
marks, when

An 'lox. MEMBER moved that tho house be counted,
and, 40 members not being present, the house stood ad-
journed at half past 8 o'clock.

ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY,

ne 14th and last meeting of the present session of this
society w''s held on Monday evening, the 27th inst., at
B urlin g ton
-I,ouse' Sir Roderick I. Murchison, President,
in the chair.
The first paper read was a description of the island of
Kishm, in the Pere Gulf, by Col. Pelly. Kishm lies
and almostin the exac
discus tly in t
ioh. e of the overland telegraph to India,
, s. n
oh followed the reading of the
paper, Sir H. Rawillison soh
to th® meeting the pre-
sent condition of the telegraph.
Two years ago ho had ex-
plained to the society the d acuities in the way of the line
which it was then determined to follow, and also that there
was a method of evading the obstacle by taking the more
circuitous route to the East through isersia.
Those antici-
pated difficulties had been realized, and the part of the line
between Bagdad and Buseorah would
a'waYs, under the
most favourable circumstances, be precarious The alter-
native line had now been adopted, and would be rsady in
September, but he reminded the meeting that, at the pre-
sent time, we were communicating from London to Bagdad
two or three times a week—and also with Teheran through
Russia, which facts were not generally known,
The next subject was a communication from M. Valz bery,
a Hungarian traveller, who had recent;y penetrated, in the
disguise of a dervish, through the territory of the Turco_
mans to Khiva, Bokhara, and Samaroand in Central Asia ;
travelling through districts which had not been visited by a
European since the days of Marco Polo. After several
years of preparation in a Mahomedan college he joined at
Teheran in March, 1853, a company of poor pilgrims, who
were returning to Tartary from Mecca, giving out that he
was a pious Mussulmen travelling to Central Asia with a
religious object. Thsy crosses the south-east corner of the
Caspian Sca on board a Turcoman corsair and landed at
Geumushtepe (" the silver hill"), a camp of about 2,000
tents of the Tamut tribe. From this place he visited the
ruins of the wall built by Alexander the Great, which cora-
niences on the shores of the sea, near this place, and
stretches about 100 miles inland, in the form of an em-
bankment dotted with turrets and fortifications. Con-
tinuing with the party, in a northerly direction east of
the Caspian, he passed the river Attrek, crossing the
Hyreanian desert, a horrible journey of twenty-two days,
and reached Khiva at the beginning of Juno. The pre-
sent condition of the country of which Khiva is the capi-
tal he described as most wretched. The reigning Prince,
Seid Mohammed, a sick tyrant, does little else but slaughter
hundreds of his subjects for mere trifles which he calls
transgressions of the holy religion of Mohammed. M. Yam-
bery made excursions as far as Koongrad, and was asto-
nished at the great fertility of the country, which he
thought superior to anything he had hitherto seen in Asia.