The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-09 00:00:00

DEERFOOT.

TVilkes's New York Spirit of the Times pub.
lishes some " hard facts" which the believers in
Deerfoot may digest at their leisure. Deerfoot, it
seems, does not belong to the Seneca or any other
tribe. He is of Indian blood, but for generations
his ancestors have been civilised. Paint, feathers,
and wampum are not his natural habiliments ; but
have only been assumed to attract the crowds who
have paid at the gate to see him. He is well known
in New York, and his real name is Bennett.
Alluding to these remarks the Field says—" If the
writer in Wilkes's imagines that the real state of
things was not perfectly well known in sporting
circles,' or that betting men were at all deceived by
the paint and feathers, we are sorry to say he is
much mistaken. We do not make it our business to
attend to pedestrian matters, and it is our duty to
look after the interests of sportsmen rather than of
sporting men ;' but this is not the first time that
we have heard that the Deerfoot business was
nothing but a tremendous sell;' that the paint and,
feathers were nothing but a masquerading cos-
tume, to attract the multitudes who paid to
gape ; that neither time nor distance has been
properly kept in any of these so-called
matches ;' and that the pedestrians whom Deerfoot
has beaten have been hired to play their part in
the farce like any other actors. A very short time
ago a gentleman, well-known as a betting man,
offered publicly at Newmarket to lay a thousand
pounds, or any part of that sum, that he would
find a man at the shortest notice who would run.
Deerfoot for from five
p
e yarednspulep
wtoillsObemapiltest—o
ask,and
his bet was not tak
why was not this exposed before ; and we are
afraid that the only answer is, because it was
nobody's business to do so. So long as the crowds
paid money at the grounds' for the privilege of
seeing a man capering in feathers and paint, and
finishing off his races with a war-whoop, well and
good. At any rate it was as good a sight as Blondin
or any other acrobat. Nobody had any money on
the business, except perhaps a few flats whose
crowns and half-crowns were picked up freely ; so
it was nobody's business to complain. if abetting.
man had only lost £lO by Deerfoot, the public
would not have been quite so long without the in-
formation that as a genuine American article, ho is
about as real as Barnum's woolly-horse, or the nurse
of General Washington.

A prospectus has been issued of a new suburban
line, to be called the Metropolitan and Thames Valley
Railway. It will connect the Great Western and South-
Western lines with Hampton, Sunbury, Chertsey, and,
passing through a favourable country, can be constructed
at small cost. The enterprise has good local support, and
the proposed capital is £250,000, in £lo shares.

ifgE PERSIA AND AUSTRALASIAN.—These two
magnificent steamships, belonging to the Cunard fleet, aro
being rapidly fitted for the conveyance of troops, stores, and
ammunition, and it is expected that they will bo ready to
sail hence for Canada about the 14th or 15th inst. Each of
them is to carry out a complement of 1,100 soldiers, 5,000
stand of arms, and 300 tons of stores. Besides these, each
is take out a field battery and a large quantity of ammuni-
tion. In addition to the two vessels named above, it is un-
derstood that negotiations arc on foot for iieClViDg QUO or
two othtx fgst.tlass stature*