The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-21 00:00:00

THE DERBY.

Yesterday was most emphatically a bad day for
both races—the Derby and the human. It is not
often that the Londoners' festival is spoilt by the
weather. Since the Prince Consort with the
Prince of Prussia saw the race run in driving
rain, half sleet, half snow, in 1857, there has
been no wet Derby. The very name of the race is
associated in one's mind with heat and glare, blue
veils, dust, gritty fowls, and tepid champagne,
so that, on the whole, the dwellers in this most
changeful climate of ours have, after all, but
little reason to complain. As with other things,
however, so is it with the weather, the present
miseries of one wet day are sufficient to obliterate
a hundred sunny memories of others; and we ven-
ture to think that it will take many fine Derbys
quite to efface the recollection of the superlatively
miserable one yesterday. We need hardly say how
bad it was in its weather, and the weather made
the attendance thin and poor; and the false starts
for the great event, false starts which occupied
nearly an hour in the cold biting rain, made every
one impatient and angry, and the heavy poached
state of the course made the pace of the race itself
slow, and as much a trial of strength as speed, so
that, altogether, the Derby of 1863 will only be
looked back upon with pleasure by those who stood
on the winner.

The morning, however, gave no token of such
accumulated disappointments. It had been wet and
was dell, with lowering clouds on the horizon, which
the delicate attentions of a north-east wind threat-
ened to bring more prominently forward as the day
wore on ; still it was dry though cold, and by soon
after 10 o'clock the lines of vehicles of all kinds be-
gan to splash their way towards the south in their
wonted numbers. There was, however, a far greater
preponderance of gentlemen clad in waterproofs
and carrying stout umbrellas than one likes to see
on these gala days ; all the private carriages were
closed, the public ones were much more full inside
than out, there was an almost total absence of lady
visitors, there were none of those amusing little
parties cramming open tax-carts and accommodat-
ing a couple of visitors on the shafts, there were
none of the open vans that go so well till a very
narrow part of the road is reached, when they
break down hopelessly, and, worse then all, after 11
o'clock, there was a most visible decrease in the
number of vehicles altogether. Before 12 it had be-
gun to rain, and in these words are summed up the
discomforts of the day. There is no outdoor festivity,
however attractive, there is no party to enjoy it,
however hilarious, which can long withstand the
influence of English rain when it begins in a busi-
nesslike way on a public holyday. It rained yester-
day not by fits and starts, with fine but delusive
intervals between, but with a steady monotonous
downpour of fine cold wet, as if the weather was
determined to do its work slowly, but to do it well.
At first there was a little playful badinage from the
more venturesome of the pedestrians who lined the
roads near Clapham, but even this soon ceased as
the rain increased, and the jokers and the joked
came to equal terms as regarded miseries, and the
long dull train of vehicles went plashing silently on,
churning the yellow gravel into a creamy slush,
neither mud nor water, though possessing all the
most unpleasant attributes of each. Thus through
Cheam and Sutton wound the long line, its occu-
pants either cowering under umbrellas from the
remorseless drip and plash, or gazing with vindic-
tive gloominess from carriage windows out upon the
leaden sky and mists of driving rain. The roads
were deep and dreadfully heavy, more than the
usual proportion of horses succumbing from sheer
fatigue, and now and then a vehicle itself would
Some to grief, founder, and go down with all hands
in the mud. But in these latter oases the victims
escaped the relentless chaff which always follow
these annoying accidents on fine days. There seemed
to be a general and not unnatural impression that
those who were thus compelled to turn back were
rather fortunate than otherwise, and, no matter
what their muddy plight, everyone saw at a glance
that it must be their own case if, when they reached
the course, they ventured to alight and walk a dozen
yards from their carriages. At Epsom itself the
carriages were joined by an attenuated stream of
very damp pedestrians, which the Brighton and
South-Western trains kept filtering through the
muddy town and out upon the Downs, where both
crowd and mud culminated.

The miserable state of affairs was more forcibly
told here than at any portion of the journey. Where
were the negro melodists, the conjurors, and tum-
blers ? Where the ''kerrect kards," gipsies, brushers
down, performing monkeys, and precocious children ?
What had become of the weighing-machines, the
three throws, and sallow vagabonds who parody
the "noble art" and batter at each other's faces with
old mouldy gloves in hope of coppers ? Where, in
short, were all the dingy bedouins of England who
travel through to this great gathering, and some-
how—sometimes honestly--contrive to pick up
money enough to tick them over till the Cup Day
at Ascot ? Scarcely any were visible yesterday.
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