riders--jockies, jackets,--Dead
Heats--sweats--distances--trainings--scales--caps, and all--what would you
be without Top Boots? What! and echo answers--nothing!

Ay, worse than nothing--a chancery suit without money--an Old Bailey
culprit without an _alibi_--a debtor without an excuse--a new play without
a titled author--a manager without impudence--a thief without a
character--a lawyer without a wig--or a Guy Faux without matches!

Tops, you must be "made to measure." Wellingtons, Hessians, Bluchers,
Ankle-Jacks, and Highlows, can be chosen from, fitted, and tried on; but
_you_ must be measured for, lasted, back-strapped, top'd, wrinkled and
bottomed, according to order.

So it is with your proprietors--the little men who ride the great running
horses. There's an impenetrable mystery about those little men--they _are_,
we know that, but we know not how. Bill Scott is in the secret--Chifney is
well aware of it--John Day could enlighten the world--but they won't! They
know the value of being "light characters"--their fame is as "a feather,"
and _downey_ are they, even as the illustration of that fame. They conspire
together like so many little Frankensteins. The world is treated with a
very small proportion of very small jockeys; they never increase beyond a
certain number, which proves they are not born in the regular way: as the
old ones drop off, the young ones just fill their places, and not one to
spare. Whoever heard of a "mob of jockeys," a glut of "light-weights," or
even a handful of "feathers?"--no one!

It's like Freemasonry--it's an awful mystery! Bill Scott knows all about
the one, and the Duke of Sussex knows all about the other, but the
uninitiated know nothing of either! Jockeys are wonders--so are their