making no secret of their possession of them, and do not hold in their hands that absolute power of making or marring which is confided to actual participators in the contest. When jockeys have the inclination as well as the means to join in the game as masters, it is high time for them to put off their livery as servants, and to refrain from acting a double part. We are not so sanguine as to believe that, through the adoption of such measures as we have from time to time advocated, the golden age of pristine innocence is likely to return, or that the Turf can ever be thoroughly purified from the noxious influences which are perpetually compassing its partial degradation; but we do most fearlessly assert the imminent necessity of strong measures to abate in part the grievances with which it is admitted to be infested. We recommend no radical changes, but mere modifications of existing laws, which cannot possibly work otherwise than for good, and which cannot be regarded as tyrannical, unjust, or even as empirical. The hour is admitted to have arrived for revision of existing statutes, and we have no fear of the men being unequal to the occasion. There is so much worthy to be admired and preserved in the institutions over which the Jockey Club preside, that no apology is needed from the humblest lover of sport in advancing subjects for the consideration of our Turf Senate. We are content to believe that the recent course of events has done much to clear away these cobwebs of venerable conservatism, which have hitherto prevented light from streaming in through the windows of prejudiced minds. It is in no spirit of self-conceit or interference that these reforms are submitted to Friends in Council,' while they are engaged upon the task of recasting and remodelling a code now grown obsolete and out of tune with the times. Now is the opportunity for suggestions which may help the work onward towards perfection without embarrassing its general effect or confusing details, and we have the vast majority of our countrymen with us, in desiring to see the edifice, when completed, worthy of all the pains which will be abundantly bestowed upon its erection.

AMPHION.

THE LATE MR. F. P. MILLER.

WHO was Fred Miller?' some young fellow who has left school, and who perhaps is making his debut on a public cricket ground, is likely to ask.

The answer is-My boy, just about the time when you were. born, or, at any rate, a little child, Mr. F. P. Miller-who was commonly called Fred Miller '-was taking the most prominent position in one of the finest elevens who ever trod the greensward, when the Surrey eleven were Surrey men all,' and beat all England. The eleven at the time when Mr. Miller first played are spoken of reverentially now as 'the grand old Surrey eleven,' by those who

witnessed their performances fifteen or twenty years ago, just as those who are a generation older record the glorious days of Kent and Sussex twenty years before the resuscitation of Surrey.

Mr. Frederick Peel Miller was born at Clapham in the summer of 1828, and was consequently in his forty-eighth year. He was initiated into good cricket in the Dulwich and Streatham Clubs; and his first appearance in a grand match was in the Surrey Club and Marylebone Club match at Lord's in 1851, when he was about twenty-three years of age.

It was about the year 1851 that the Surrey Club was in its full strength, and real good two-day club matches were played. The Walker and Hoare families, and backbone cricketers, both gentlemen and players of note, from Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Middlesex, including the Nappers, Mr. Alfred Mynn, Mr. Felix, Mr. Hayter Reid, Martingell, Daniel Day, Hillyer, Hinkly, Heath, Brockwell, and too many to record, were promoting real good cricket in Surrey; and as many of them had plenty of time and money at their command, Surrey cricket attracted as much attention as that of the Marylebone Club.

It was in the society of cricketers of this stamp that Mr. Miller made a great mark, and formed not a few friendships. Just as Jupp first made himself conspicuous in 1862, by catching out Julius Cæsar by a wonderful running catch, when he was fielding as substitute for Hayward of Cambridgeshire, so Mr. Miller, fielding as substitute for Mr. M'Niven eleven years previously, being then unknown, created a furore at the Oval by catching out George Parr with a running left-handed catch, right among the crowd, in a match, Clarke's England Eleven v. Fourteen of Surrey. From that time he took part in the best club matches until 1853. When it was evident that he had the confidence of the county, and the entire trust of the players, he was put into the Surrey eleven in 1853, and took the captaincy in 1854 or 1855, having as a brother soldier one of the finest gentlemen players who ever played for Surrey-Mr. Charlton Lane, now rector of Great Gassenden, Herts.

It so happened that fortune smiled on him, and he became independent of the world—perhaps too soon for his own good, as there is no harder life than having nothing to do-so, with ample time and ample means, he devoted himself to county cricket, and right loyally he did it too, as was evidenced by his advancing very large sums for the publication of 'Lillywhite's Cricket Scores,' which but for him must have broken down. As a cricketer he was indefatigable in the field, a tremendous hard hitter, a very good change bowler, though he admitted, after he retired, that, in his own judgment, sometimes he kept himself on a little too long.

Mr. Miller had two splendid qualifications for a captain, as he was always ready and willing, and he never let his attention to the smallest detail flag for a single moment, and never lost heart so long as a wicket was standing. Many a time, for the good of the cause, has

he paid the difference in fare between third-class slow train and first-class express for all the players, to bring them fresh on to the ground, whether in going to or coming from the North, and he was as anxious for their comfort as he was for his own; and many a good dinner has he given to them after a match, and many a sovereign, too, to those who needed it.

Let us say the worst of him we possibly can, as his memory will bear the burthen well. If he was brusque sometimes in his manner, and over-anxious to have his own way, or showed fits of temper, or was pleased with the round of applause from the ring at the Oval, who idolised him as long as Surrey won, all these traits are common to most men put in a similar position.

Do not generals, admirals, actors, statesmen, and other public men-ay, and popular preachers, too, suffer from one or all of these little infirmities?

The Prime Minister expects to be cheered immediately he rises; the great city merchant, with his hands full of business, is a very different man from the same individual who was struggling to rise in life a few years before; and woe be to the man who coughs or sneezes when a popular preacher is on his legs; and if Mr. Miller had infirmities similar to others, and sometimes showed a little temper, was there ever a man more ready to forget and forgive after the first outburst of warm feeling? The writer of these lines can call to mind more than one occasion when (Mr. Miller and he being on different sides) sharp words passed between them, and hot temper came out like sparks off an anvil; but he cannot remember a single occasion of this kind in which a long interval elapsed before he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, and when on looking round he did not see Fred Miller's' broad, good-humoured face, full of forgiveness, or when he did not hear the cheery words What's the matter, mate? Shaking hands with him after an off-hand quarrel was like putting your hand in a cheese-press.

You may take a very large ledger, and may write down in the boldest round text ail you can remember against the name of F. P. Miller, and the total will be very small; but you must write a very small hand if you wish to get into the remaining pages of the ledger a tithe of the kind and generous actions which his right hand did and which his left hand knew not of.

If Surrey had a leader now who would devote himself to her success as Mr. Miller did (even if he was twice as bad a man as he was), and who had half as open a hand, and half as kind a heart as he had, it would be a great day for her.

Mr. Miller went to Australia and New Zealand for his health in the year 1870, and was very popular on the Colonial cricket grounds, and returned vid San Francisco and the States after two years' absence, having visited the Salt Lake City and having made the acquaintance of Brigham Young (about whom he was very funny) in 1872.

His health began to fail again in the year 1873, and he retired

into Somersetshire in the same year, and practically abandoned public cricket and cricket fields.

His death occurred on Monday, November 22nd, at his residence, Chilworthy, near Chard, from dropsy. He leaves a widow, but no family. Perhaps no man ever came so prominently before the public, without private interest and without any introduction from public school or university connection, who was so much trusted as he was, or who ever left more friends or fewer enemies. Requiescat in pace.

Mitcham, November, 1875.

F. G.

FRANK RALEIGH OF WATERCOMBE.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE Squire, finding he had made a bad cast in his endeavour to head the flying pair, attributed his failure to mere accident, and never for one moment suspected that Frank's manœuvre had been the real cause of it; or, most certainly while daylight lasted, he would not have given up the chase. After waiting an hour, however, and bucketting the little mare from one end of Walliford Down to the other without catching a glimpse of them, he came to the conclusion that, mounted as he was on a brute that would not face a fence, he might as well attempt to follow a pair of ravens as Frank and his companion across that rough country of bank and wall; so, with no little vexation, he turned the mare's head direct. for Watercombe.

That surly groom,' he said emphatically, as he viewed him still loitering on the hillside, will be sure to let them all know what I 'think of Frank's visit to Heathercot; and if that widow has a spark of spirit in her composition, she will assuredly not encourage the 'boy to stay another minute under her roof.'

Lady Susan, however, when the Squire, in describing his adventure, consoled himself with this hope, held quite a different opinion. 'Don't talk such rubbish to me, Mr. Raleigh,' she said, with a look of bitterness and pride in every feature of her Norman face. If you had only studied womankind as you have studied foxes, you'd have known something more about the sex than you appear to know at present. I warn you again, that wily woman has set a trap for Frank, and will leave no stone unturned till she has caught ' him.'

'I freely admit, madam, that vixens are very apt to run cunning, ' and rarely go straight in or out of cover; and as to the ways of women, I have good authority for knowing that they are past 'finding out. Happily, however, my business is with Frank, not 'with them; and if I can't dissuade him from this folly, I'll pack ' him off to Oxford forthwith: there he may wait for his com'mission. I can only say, if the undergraduates are what they used

'to be in my day, Heathercot and its attractions will be forgotten in 'less than a month.'

'An admirable scheme!' exclaimed Lady Susan, abandoning for once the chronic opposition she had so long given to every proposition advanced by her husband with reference to the education and management of their only son. At Oxford he will mix with 'gentlemen of his own class; and, if he don't learn much Greek ' and Latin, he will at least rub off the rust he has contracted at that miserable school of Buckbury. Of course he will go to 'St. Ebb's and be entered as a gentleman commoner?'

'Not a bit of it, madam; I'm not such a fool as to pay double 'fees for such a mere grinning honour. That may be all very well 'for a merchant Croesus, who fancies a silk gown and a velvet cap 'will give his son a step in rank and exalt him in the eyes of his fellow-students. But it is a vulgar error; and Frank, I trust, will 'need no such passport: he shall go to St. Columb's, and a plain 'commoner's gown will be all he will require.'

་

'Heaven forbid, Mr. Raleigh! That is a provincial college; and if you send him there, you will be repeating the Buckbury folly ' over again,' urged the lady; and perhaps with better reason in this instance than she had habitually displayed on other occasions.

But what of Frank and the cross-country prank he had indulged in, to the discomfiture of his father, but to the infinite delight of his fair and devoted companion? Like John Gilpin, however, who

'Little dreamt when he set out

Of running such a rig,'

it never occurred to her unsophisticated mind that to avoid an interview with his father was the real object of the wild dance Frank had led her. Banks she had charged far higher than Taffy's head; and twice the gallant little horse had floundered on his fence and came roly-poly into the next field with nose to ground, but without giving her a fall. Had a chasm presented itself, wide as that into which Marcus Curtius plunged, Mary would have followed her leader without hesitation into the very depths of its abyss. However, a Serbonian bog is about the worst gulf to be found in the region of Dartmoor, and that they were far away from in those cultivated inclosures.

On arriving at Heathercot it required but a slight knowledge of Lavater's system on Frank's part to discover that something had occurred to disturb the usual placid serenity of Mrs. Cornish's face; for, although gentle and cordial as ever in her manner to him, her expression was a troubled one, and her eyes gave token of having been bathed in tears. Nor was he long kept in suspense as to the disturbing cause. Giving Mary a hint to retire to her room and dress for dinner, Mrs. Cornish inquired, with a nervous tremor, if Frank was awire that his father had been in pursuit of him for more than an hou; and that, failing to overtake him, owing to the high fences over which he and Mary had ridden, Mr. Raleigh had then turned.

H