The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-05 00:00:00

TILE MIRROR.

The present is the last number of this the oldest
of the cheap periodicals, the pioneer of Chambers',
the Penny Magazine, et hoc genus onine. From the
ashes of the departed v.ill arise, phoenix like, on the
Ist of January, a new monthly periodical to be en-
titled " The London Review."

THE SPORTING REVIEW.
The illustrations of the Sporting Review con-
sist of the ‘‘.Neasdon Harriers," Marksman, Boaster,
and Bonny-13.11, and "An Ardent Admirer," aspirited
glimpse of a fox, eagerly watching some ducks dis-
porting on the -rnatgin of a stream. Among the
literary contents is an interesting article on " Pace
andlits Effects," by Harry Hieover, from which we
take the following remarks :

" Persons not conversant with such matters would
very naturally suppose that nothing can be easier than
for a person to judge of the pace he is going, whether it
be on the road, across a country, or on the flat ; but the
fact is, pace is a very difficult thing to be a g,'•od judge
of. We will suppose a novico to get on a race-horse in
the middle of a down, and be told to gallop him at a
certain pace to a certain object a mile and a half or two
miles a head, what has he whereby to judge of the pace
he is going at ? The celerity with which which he
seers to pass over the ground will certainly tell him
whether he is going twelve miles an hour or twenty,
but it would tell the novice little more than this ; and I
am quite certain I would put him on one horse when he
should fancy he was going at the rate of twenty miles
an hour whe❑ he was only going at that of fifteen ; I
would then change his horse, and he should feel certain
he was only going the fifteen when he was really going
the twenty. This renders a head lad, who is a good

judge of Pace, so invaluable in a training stable the
riding-boys after him can pretty well judge the pace
they are at, by seeing how far the other horses are ex•
tended ; but the head lad has nothing but practice, the
lid of his horse, and a c, vain sensation, I may call it,
h:mself, that tells him accurately the pace be takes
them along. •

U We will suppose we see a person in a gig with his
reins in one hand, and that within six inches of the
splash-board or dash. If he has a free horse I think, I
will venture to say, his whip is stuck behind him to
show what an out-and-out nag he has; for es to a whip
ever being used as an additional signal or aid to the
hand, it is a thing he never contemplates, his only idea
being that its use is to thresh a horse if ho does not go
fast enough ; but should he keep it in his dexter to ho
ready for the last named purpose he either holds it in
the position of :a toasting fork or in that of the God-
knows-what-it's-called, that is placed on the Lord
Mayor's coach as the insignia of office. His seat (1
should rather say mode of sitting) is on the front edge
of the cushion in a position that leads us to suppose he
is avoiding a teupenny nail rising through and coming in
contact with his person, his heels touching the heel
board, for which he concludes it is put there. If such a
man, unfortunately for the horse, has a good goer, my
life on it he is going fourteen miles an hour, that is as
long as he can ; and if, vice versa, he has one that can-
not manage eight, if he finds another carriage coming
along ut a wager-rate pace, he begins plying the whip to
present his getting the go.by. This all arises from his
knowing nothing of the pace his horse is going, if at
the rate of fifteen miles an hour, ho is not aware that he
is doing so ; conscquently, if ho has a twenty-mile stage
before him, he lets him go at the some pace that he
might do from Hyde-Park Corner to Turnham-green;
and, supposing him going that road, is greatly sur-
prised if when he comes to Longford he finds his horse
fall off in pace ; if be is a humane man he allows the
nag to finish his stage at his own pace, fearing some-
thing is amiss with him ; and on arriving at Salt Hill,
when he finds he will not feed, he cannot account for
it. Thus do horses suffer from men who are not judges
of pace.
We will now suppose another case ; that is, of the
carriage I have alluded to coming up to such a driver as
I have particularised ; he bas, we will say, an animal
that could not get over nine miles of ground within the
hour, if ho was flayed alive in the endeavour to make
him do it; seeing the other carriage at his side, he is not
judge enough to see by the action of the rival nag, or by
the invisibility of the spokes of the wheels of the rival
carriage, the pace it is going. He whips his own Dob-
bin, thinking a little more exertion will save the igno-
miny of being left behind ; lie has no idea of the enor-
mity of difference in point of going there is between
nine and fifteen miles an hour. They say no one knows
what he can do till he tries ; our driver tries what his
horse can do, flogs him, he breaks into an awkward
cantor, he pulls him in, hits him again, again he can-
ters, he snatches at his horse's bit, the nag does not
know whether he n.eans that ho is to increase the
pace in the canter or to trot ; so by the time the
other carriage is out of sight our driver has so con-
fused his horse that it would take a coachman a couple
of miles to get him to settle to the best trot he was
capable of. This dilemma, it will be seen, solely arose
from want of being able to judge of the pace the passing
horse was going at, and of that his own had action to
accomplish."