could hardly stand the morning after the Derby, but that, on the contrary, he is quite well. They do say that such is their confidence in him, that they think he can win the Goodwood Cup with 8st. 1lb., receiving only 4lbs. for his two years from Rattle! The suspensory ligament of De Clare's off foreleg is in a state which will most probably keep him in the stable this year, and though Rifleman may just be got ready for the St. Leger, his vet. thinks it will be a very nice point. At all events, Fandango, bar the two chestnut Oaks rivals, has a pretty clear field for the Great Yorkshire Stakes. Among the two-year-olds I also hear smooth things of Mr. Morris's Artillery, who is hired, according to their wont, from Mr. Disney, and Bucolic is said to be very good-looking. But a truce to gossip.

The third Great Western trains received my wearied bones at their Windsor terminus a little before seven o'clock; the poor ladies in the gardens of that tall old brick pile near Hanwell waved their white handkerchiefs to us as energetically as ever; the clerical gentleman was under his wonted elm, and threw himself into his heaven-ward attitude again as we passed, and thus ended the Fandango Cup day.

Friday we look on as an utterly ridiculous day, and wonder that the Master of the Buckhounds does not bring his revel to an end on Thursday. It is idle to talk of a "royal" meeting, which on its last day has only a pitiful £50 Plate to offer from its funds, and depends on M.P.'s and a Railway Company (who get no earthly advantage from that day) to eke out the other £150. Eglantine took her journey South for nothing, as she was not stripped after all in the Great Western Plate. Claret was too lame even to beat Poor Player, and Acrobat added another victory to that chequered bede-roll, which Mr. Goodwin attempted to decypher in his very gratuitous pamphlet of" Acrobat and his running.'

This distinguished commentator was hardly so much in his glory at the sale of the royal yearlings as he was last year, and only £2,871 was placed by him to her Majesty's credit, whereas last year there was no less than £6,174. That 441gs. average for a lot of yearlings was the result of a mania which was not likely to last, and we take it that 163gs. a-piece for the present seventeen does not pay ill. The scene was vastly different, and there was no excitement whatever about it. Ld. Derby took quiet counsel with John Scott before the sale began; and John of Findon and Mr. Padwick (who seemed more united than usual as their separation drew nigh) also took their rounds, but kept remarkably still during the sale. The chesnut colt, by Orlando, out of Iodine's dam, excited a great deal of notice in his box. We should have guessed him from his general cut and marks to be a Pyrrhus the First; and, barring his small feet, he almost seemed worth the 350gs venture which the owner of Autocrat made for him. Mr. Tattersall looked wonderfully fre-h and well, and sold three or four hunters before the chesnut was trotted out, just to clear his pipes. John Day, jun., showed good fight for it to the last, we believe for Mr. Harry Hill. The colt by Alarm, out of Manacle-Venison and Emilius to wit-had rather swelled glands; and although a very fine-looking animal, he only fetched 36gs., and was bought on speculation by a Mr. Lawes, who parted with his bargain to Mr. Stevens the trainer for 10gs. Voltigeur's half-brother took after his sire Iago; and though the Zetland stable had of course felt some

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fancy for him, John of Danebury got him for 150gs. The lot of the Stamp filly was cast with the Iodine colt for 105gs.; and then Ld. Derby bid pretty frequently for the Flying Dutchman colt, out of Equation, but would not go to 150gs.; and also tried his hand at the great filly by Alarm, out of Jamaica. Mr. Padwick revived his old bidding notions when the filly by Orlando, out of Distaffina, came out, but only bought the Nunappleton filly. The great contest of the sale was between Admiral Rous and Lord Maidstone for the filly by Orlando, out of Eulogy. Ld. M. put her in at 200gs., and the Admiral capt him so quickly, that by the aid of one or two 50gs. bids, she was at 400gs. in an instant. That's the way to do it!" ejaculated Mr. Tattersall, with a burst of delight, and at it the two peers-presumptive went again, Ld. Maidstone, for Lord Derby, outlasting the Admiral with a 480gs. bid, the head price of the year. John Scott's stable also got the light sherry-bay filly by Alarm, out of Flea, who was about twice the size of her half-sister Cimicina, when we last saw her run. She was an immensely furnished animal, with a very sweet forehand, and a tail very low set on, which did not increase her beauty. She ended at 350gs.; but we heard, on the next Monday, that she was still at Tattersall's, owing to a dispute as to who made the last bid. The very nice sister to Grapeshot, who was bought by Mr. Irwin, could. only make 130gs., the same price which was given by the Admiral for sister to Frantic. We had the curiosity to add up the prices at which the seventeen were "put in," and we found that they reached in the aggregate 385gs. As a lot they were not nearly so much made up as the last; but the variety of ways in which Mr. Villiers has hit the gentlemen, and his discounting and commissioner friends in the ring, added to the dead-level Derby settling-the war-and the mediocre running of the high-priced animals from this stud last year, all combined to make purchasers button their pockets tight. Iago and Alarm are also not very popular as sires; the stock of the former are generally sad cowards, while those of the latter are deficient in speed. As regards high-priced yearlings, we may mention that the first and second in the 2000gs. brought 440gs. and 385gs. at the hammer in the Doncaster Meeting of '53, so that there is still some luck in high prices, though Crucifix, Blacklock, The Hero, &c., so gallantly support the reputation of the "old song" division.

FISHING IN NORTH WALES.

JACK-Y-PANDY'S WEIR.

Having spent an unusually dreary winter in London, and feeling that my spirits and faculties required a total change of scene to raise them from the zero of depression, I determined to avail myself of a short interval of business to get a run of a few days among the mountains of North Wales, where the free spirits of the flood and fell are all-powerful to combat and exorcise the blue devils of cockney origin. Fishing was my principal object; but as total idleness is as wearisome as incessant

employment, some intellectual provender was desirable. Arming myself, therefore, with a block sketch-book and a volume of Shakspeare in addition to my Fly-fisher's Entomology, I "shipped myself all aboard of" the London and North Western Railway, and in a few hours was comfortably established on the outside of the Aberystwith mail, merrily winding along the hill-sides of Montgomeryshire. I would not speak disrespectfully, nor think ungratefully, of the roaring puffing monster, to whose power I am indebted for the ability to reach the beauties of Cambrian Nature in so short a time: still, it must be allowed that railroad travelling is not per se enlivening. It is admirable for enabling you to be at a place; but for the enjoyment of going there give me the old well-appointed mail coach. It is to be hoped that the fastnesses of the principality, which in old times preserved the aborigines from their Roman invaders, may in these days save some specimens of the old four-horse teams from utter extinction before the ruthless march of navvies and locomotives; but the desertion of Mr. Telford's magnificent mail road from Shrewsbury to Bangor is full of evil omen. But it is no use forestalling evil; and my enjoyment of the present on that lovely May morning was much too keen to allow of unpleasant anticipations for the future. It was my intention to stop at Mallwyd, a small village on the Dyfi, one stage short of Machynlleth, and perhaps to spend there the few days I could allow myself to be absent from London. I had been influenced in my choice by various considerations. A few hours passed there in a former year had left an agreeable impression of the beauty of the scenery, and the comfort of the old respectable inn. I had recently heard that the fishing in the Dyfi had been much improved by the exertions of some neighbouring gentlemen, who had formed themselves into an association for suppressing the use of nets, spears, and such-like destructive and unsportsmanlike engines in its waters. I had some hopes of meeting there an old schoolfellow, who I knew was somewhere in the neighbourhood. Finally, I knew that if I should be disappointed at Mallwyd, a walk of a few hours across the mountains would take me to Llyn Mwngel, better known as Tal Llynn, where I was sure of good sport either in lake or stream, and of a warm and hearty welcome from Edward Owen, the landlord of the small inn at the foot of the lake, than whom a more honest true-hearted host never "welcomed a coming or speeded a parting guest." Poor Edward Owen! It was a sad day when a few months later I received intelligence of his sudden death. I felt that in the humble Welsh innkeeper I had lost a friend.

A few miles from Mallwyd the road crosses the watershed that divides the rivers flowing eastward from those which run into Cardigan Bay, and, descending somewhat rapidly, soon gains a comparatively low level, where the Dyfi, whose sources we have passed on the high ground, is already a considerable stream; and, as it winds along between its steep banks, much overhung with trees, suggests to the impatient angler visions of what a friend of mine not unaptly calls "curse-ary" fishing. The expression, like Sterne's "Out upon it," if not "misplaced," is certainly somewhat equivocal." The river, the scenery, the weather, everything combined to arouse all the fisherman within me, and the coachman was quite ready to sympathise in my excitement. He was a native of North Wales, and, like most of his countrymen in that happy land, where preserved waters are almost unknown, was by no means an

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unskilful or indifferent follower of the craft. He confirmed me in my choice of Mallwyd as a halting place, commending my old acquaintance, Edward Lloyd, "surgeon and innkeeper," in the spirit of old Izaak Walton, as 66 a good fisherman and a very honest man." I was glad to find that he still exercised his double vocation at his old haunt, having been told that he had some time since removed to Machynlleth; and having a lively recollection of his hearty jolly face and person, as well as of the beauty of Mrs. Lloyd, who was the original "Maid of Llangollen." My informant also answered all my enquiries as to the improved state of the Dyfi fishery in a satisfactory manner, and added, in conclusion, that "as Jack-y-Pandy's weir was at last destroyed, I might depend on finding good fishing up as well as down the river from Mallwyd." As I had never heard of this gentleman or his weir, I was rather curious to know "what's his history;" and, from the information my companion gave me, it appeared to be by no means a blank." Jack-y-Pandy (of whose real patronymic my informant, though he had known him from his own boyhood, was wholly ignorant) was now an old man, who had lived all his life in the parish of Mallwyd, of which he was a native. His ostensible calling was that of working at a fulling mill, from the Welsh name of which, "Pandy," he derived his addition. As Jack-y-Pandy, or Jack of the Fulling Mill, he was well-known to all the country round; though, probably, if you had enquired for John Roberts, which I afterwards found was his real name, you would have been sent to the wrong person, if the existence of such a man had not been ignored altogether. His occupation at the mill was rather nominal than real, for it was well-known that he derived far larger gains from the sale of fish, in the capture of which he was avowedly as unscrupulous in the means employed as he was successful in the results attained. He was, in fact, a regularly established poacher; and, though fish were his principal objects, game of other kinds did not come amiss to him. He was one of those characters whose hardihood and recklessness bears down opposition, and acknowledges no law but its own will. He ought to have lived in the days of the iron Barons. As it was, in the remote and thinly peopled district where he resided, the hand of the law was too slow in its movements, and too feeble in its grasp, to give Jack much trouble; and without a shadow of right he had established an undisputed sway over the river in the neighbourhood of his residence. He made a dam across the stream close to the mill, which completely blocked up the passage, and prevented fish passing, except through the three or four openings where he placed his baskets. Day after day he would take these up full of trout (sewin, as the sea-trout are called there) and salmon. Scarce a fish could escape; and the consequence was, that while Jack drove a flourishing trade in fish, the fishing in the part of the river above his weir was completely ruined. There was no want of complaints against the encroachment; but the nuisance remained. The proprietor of the river did not reside in the neighbourhood, and if complaints reached him he did not trouble himself to interfere. Remonstrances and threats were alike disregarded by Jack: he laughed at the one, and retorted the other; and such was the known violence of his character, that few were hardy enough to be willing to incur his wrath. A son and daughter who lived with him were his principal assistants. The young people were quite as unscrupulous as

the father by whom they had been trained; and Miss Mary, especially, was a powerful ally in the broils in which the old man was occasionally involved. She by no means confined herself to the use of that which has been

"Woman's weapon ever, sith
Old Eve began to chide."

though in the use of that weapon she was no mean proficient. She was a perfect Amazon-to the courage of a man she added masculine strength and activity, and was as unscrupulous as she was fearless in the exercise of her powers. A woman who will mix in a fray is the most formidable antagonist one can encounter; for though she may, as Miss Fanny Squeers expressed it, "forget her sect, and strike you," you cannot return the compliment, and beyond a doubt the best course in such cases is to beat a speedy retreat. Accordingly the Penthisilea of the fulling-mill was always worth at least two men on the side of her father. He was also aided and abetted by some few of his own immediate intimates, who in an inferior degree shared in the profits, and stood by him in support of his practices. For a long time there was no attempt at combination against this small body, and they were strong enough to defy individual opposition. Some years ago a neighbour, taking example by Jack, constructed a similar weir some little way lower down the river, where it flowed through his own ground. This of course would have materially injured Jack's business, and, therefore, determining to "bear no rival near his throne," he sallied forth at the head of his party, and in open daylight, by force of the strong hand, they tore down the dam, carried off the baskets, and threatened the unlucky proprietor with summary and exemplary vengeance if he should ever again attempt to interfere with Jack's monopoly. From that time till shortly before my visit Jack had remained in undisputed possession of his weir, and the number of years it had remained had, in his own opinion, given him an indefeasible title to maintain it. When, however, the association already mentioned for improving the fishery had been formed, amongst the first and most important objects to be attained was the destruction of Jack y-Pandy's unlawful weir. Jack was not left in ignorance of their intentions: he received a notice calling on him to demolish the weir, coupled with an announcement that if he did not do it himself it would be done by them. He pitched the notice into the river, and threatened to pitch the bearer of it after it, if he ever came again on such an errand. At the same time he dared the association to execute their threat. Various causes combined to delay the accomplishment of their project, but my informant believed that within the last day or two it had been effected. He had, however, not been down the road for that period, and therefore could not give me accurate information on the subject.

My enquiries about Jack-y-Pandy were by no means exhausted by the time we arrived at Mallwyd, and as the coach wheeled round the angle of the old house into the small square where the change of horses was waiting, it became evident from the aspect of things that something unusual was going on. Instead of the customary bustling troop of volunteers, all anxious to assist in forwarding her Majesty's mail, there was no one in attendance upon the horses but the single helper who