The Sun.
London, England, 1868-10-30 00:00:00

NO DERBY NE I 7 YEAR.

" I believe it because it is impossible," wrote a
defiant disputant of old ; and it is only on that •
principle that we can give any credence to the ter-
rible report that there will be "no Derby next
year." We feel what a shock it must be to every
well-regulated mind even to real these worth ; and
we should be loth to circulate such peculiarly pain-
ful intelligence, had not a sporting contemporary
already broken the news. It is asserted that the
part of the Derby course which extends from Tat-
tenharn Corner to the furzes is new the property of
a Mr. Studd ; that he demands a thousand a year
for it, instead of the three hundred a year obtained
by the former owner; that the Grand Stand Com-
mittee rejected the demand, believing that they
could make a new course ; that they now find out
they cannot ; and that Mr. Stuld, incensed at
the quarrel, declares that, "no matter what terms
they offer," there shall Le no racing on his
grounds. As most people know, the entries for
the Derby are made long before the event, and the
conditions precisely specify the very course which
is now Mr. Studd's property; the race could not
be run elsewhere; and all the arrangements for the
Derby of 1869 would be null and void—entries
bets, and all—should the landowner refuse to
give way. In fact, there could be no Derby next
year ! But, as we have said, the thing is impos-
sible. As Mr. Pickwick remarked, when he and
his friends were forced to lead about the country
a raw-boned white horse, " This is like a horrible
dream." But there are dreams that, even when
we know them to be such, leave a painful impres-
sion ; and the bare thought that in any year there
may be " no Derby" is really too much for ordi-
nary human nerves. We might as well be told
that there is to be no sunrise next Monday, or
no Wednesday next week. To liken it to "no
daily papers" were feeble ; for there are several
parts of the world, even of England, where,
strange to say, the people live on after a fashion
without the morning journals. But no Derby !
Nero wished that all mankind had one neck ;
and if Mr. Studd be an unrelenting enemy of the
human race, he must rejoice to find that so many
millions of the English people have one amusement,
and that he can stop it at a word. Savage tribes
believe in the power of their medicine-man to bring
on an eclipse ; but here, through the combination
of legal rights with some committee blundering,
the eclipsing power rests in Mr. Studd's hands,
so that he can " throw several families into mourn-
ing," and " eclipse the harmless gaiety of a nation,"
sin:ply by refusing to let his land. We suppose
that he has the legal power ; but is not the safety
of the people the supreme law, and are the English
people " safe" if enraged at such a calamity, un-
precedented in the history of the world ? The worst
Roman Emperors never dared to curtail the circenses
of the populace. Senators or patricians might be
cut off, but the games for the masses went gaily
on ; yet what a Caesar could not do is done by a
plain Englishman, who tells us that his foot is on
his Epsom Heath, and that his name is Stutl.l. In
the courts of the United States writs of error are
sued out in the form of " Hiram and Jenks against
The People ;" and this Derby case is simply a suit
of "Studd against the People of England"—twenty
millions to one against Staid, and yet that awful
outsider may win.
It is very difficult to realise a No Derby year.
It would take a five-hundred Frith power to
paint the results of the national holiday on
such a clay. But, like Sterne, taking one cap-
tive to illustrate slavery, let us take a single
jockey, and imagine the blight falling on his
young life, when he hears that the Derby is to be
run no more. No more for him the dear delight
of being the familiar of Dukes, Marquises, Earls,
and, greater still, trainers of valued studs. No
more for him unlimited adoration, champagne in
tropical showers from titled friends proud of his
friendship, and cigars, bigger than himself, from
generous young " swells." Think, also, of the
humbler stableboys, whose few ideas run round
Derbies alone, who—as Churchmen date Sundays
before or after Trinity—fix events as before or after
the Derby of each year, and look to the fateful
Wednesday as the central day of the throe hundred
and sixty-five. But the Derby, as we all know, is
not the holiday of any one class. Men who never
devote a thought or a shilling to another race yield
to the national frolic or mania on that great day,
and stake something or other on the result. On that
day Englishmen speak to one another without being
introduced. On that day a costermonger and a
Duke have a fellow feeling ; a beggar might, unre-
baked, ask a banker the tidings of the hour. In
every club and public-house, at every street corner
of every town, in every theatre and cone rt hall,
in rail way carriages, omnibuses, and cabs, the
Derby becomes the event of the year, and when it
is run the result is the news of the day. Fancy,
then, the change 1 All this central interest
crowding round one day and round one event,
would be completely gone. Imagine London not
poured out of town in a long parti-coloured stream
—a hundred thousand human beings with one goal
in view—but doomed to stay at home. Gloomy
groups stand about discussing the disaster, as if the
earth had opened out to swallow up the national
holiday. Fancy the Epsom road, with its desola-
tion and alarming, amazing silence. Fancy all the
female inhabitants of all the villas and all the
boarding-schools looking out of windows like Sis-
ter Anne to see if. anybody is coming, and not dis-
cerning the habitual clouds of dust—the poor girls
with repartees ready for the jokers who do not come
with bright killing glances, and nobody eager to
be killed. The thought is too much.
Let us suppose, on next "Derby" day, Studd, in
a brown study, alone, rejoicing over his decision ;
Epsom silent and neglected ; and then, companion
picture, the people of England in anger and in
gloom ! We do not believe in the being who could
face such a fact—" There's no such man." Could
he calmly " lay his head on his pillow," like a jury-
man, and hear in fancy the chorus of condemna-
tion from the enraged Britons cheated out of their
day ? Could he, unmoved, see in his mind's eye
the tears that trickle down the lovely cheeks of
those deprived of that " litae trip" which they had
been promised so long? Could he face unflinch-
ingly the possibility of a deputation of coster-
mongers coming to hear what he had to say in
extenuation of his unprecelented crime. But we
have no fear that extra legal means will be
necessary. After all Studd must be, most pro-
bably is, human. Children have dialed his knees
—at least we hope si ; he has " sat at good men's
feast's ;" he may have had his troubles like the rest
of us, but they cannot have altogether soured his
disposition. The Grand Stand Committee may have
offended him ; but what crime have we—the people
of England—committed, that he should hate us with
such a deadly hate ? What shall we do to appease
him ? Would he like to be " Marquis, Duke, per-
haps Lord Mayor"—Governor-General of India, a
Life Peer? He has but to name his terms, and
sooner than lose the Derby we will grant anything
he asks. Of course, like Erostratus setting fire to
a
the Temple of Diana, he may covet the immortal
fame that would surely await the destroyer of the
Derby ; but it is better for Studd to be remembered
with bletuinge than to go down—down vory low
is