Nothing is more incontestable than the fact that the breed of
English horses has not been really improved, certainly not by
racing and its requirements. It has been truly observed that
'what is called the turf is merely a name for the worst kind of
gambling. The men who engage in it are as far as possible from
any ideal of sporting men. It is a grim joke, in fact, to speak
of "sport" at all in their connection. The turf to them is but a
wider and more vicious sort of tapis vert--the racing but the
rolling of the balls--the horses but animated dice. It is
difficult to name a single honest or manly instinct which is
propagated by the turf as it is, or which does not become debased
and vitiated by the association. From a public recreation the
thing has got to be a public scandal. Every year witnesses a
holocaust of great names sacrificed to the insatiable demon of
horse-racing--ancient families ruined, old historic memories
defiled at the shrine of this vulgarest and most vicious of
popular passions.'

Among those who have sought to reform the turf is Sir Joseph
Hawley, who last year succeeded in procuring the abolition of
two-year-old races before the 1st of May. He is now
endeavouring, to go much further, and has given notice of a
motion for the appointment of a committee of the Jockey Club to
consider the question of the whole condition of the turf.

There can be no doubt, that, if Sir Joseph Hawley's propositions,
as announced, be adopted, even in a modified form, they would go
to the very root of the evil, and purify the turf of the worst of
the present scandals.