To-day I visited Ascot. Race-courses are similar every where, and
present the same objects; good horses, cruel riders, knowing men, dupes,
jockeys, gamblers, and a large assemblage of mixed company. But this
is a gayer scene than most others; and every epithet, appropriate to a
course, diminutive or otherwise, must be in the superlative degree when
applied to Ascot. This is the general, and often the only impression
that most men carry away with them.
Mr. Slick, who regards these things practically, called my attention to
another view of it.
“Squire,” said he, “I’d a plaguy sight sooner see Ascot than any thing
else to England. There ain’t nothin’ like it. I don’t mean the racin’,
because they can’t go ahead like us, if they was to die for it. We have
colts that can whip chain lightnin’, on a pinch. Old Clay trotted with
it once all round an orchard, and beat it his whole length, but it
singed his tail properly as he passed it, you may depend. It ain’t its
runnin’ I speak of, therefore, though that ain’t mean nother; but it’s
got another featur’, that you’ll know it by from all others. Oh it’s an
everlastin’ pity you warn’t here, when I was to England last time. Queen
was there then; and where she is, of coarse all the world and its wife
is too. She warn’t there this year, and it sarves folks right. If I was
an angelyferous queen, like her, I wouldn’t go nowhere till I had a
tory minister, and then a feller that had a “trigger-eye” would stand
a chance to get a white hemp-neckcloth. I don’t wonder Hume don’t like
young England; for when that boy grows up, he’ll teach some folks that
they had better let some folks alone, or some folks had better take care
of some folks’ ampersands that’s all.
“The time I speak of, people went in their carriages, and not by
railroad. Now, pr’aps you don’t know, in fact you can’t know, for you
can’t cypher, colonists ain’t no good at figurs, but if you did know,
the way to judge of a nation is by its private carriages. From Hyde Park
corner to Ascot Heath, is twenty odd miles. Well, there was one whole
endurin’ stream of carriages all the way, sometimes havin’ one or two
eddies, and where the toll-gates stood, havin’ still water for ever so
far. Well, it flowed and flowed on for hours and hours without stoppin’,
like a river; and when you got up to the race-ground, there was the
matter of two or three tiers of carriages, with the hosses off, packed
as close as pins in a paper.
“It costs near hand to twelve hundred dollars a-year to keep up a
carriage here. Now for goodness’ sake jist multiply that everlastin’
string of carriages by three hundred pounds each, and see what’s spent
in that way every year, and then multiply that by ten hundred thousand
more that’s in other places to England you don’t see, and then tell me
if rich people here ain’t as thick as huckleberries.”
“Well, when you’ve done, go to France, to Belgium, and to Prussia, three
sizeable places for Europe, and rake and scrape every private carriage
they’ve got, and they ain’t no touch to what Ascot can show. Well, when
you’ve done your cypherin’, come right back to London, as hard as you
can clip from the race-course, and you won’t miss any of ‘em; the town
is as full as ever, to your eyes. A knowin’ old coon, bred and born to
London, might, but you couldn’t.
“Arter that’s over, go and pitch the whole bilin’ of ‘em into the
Thames, hosses, carriages, people, and all; and next day, if it warn’t
for the black weepers and long faces of them that’s lost money by it,
and the black crape and happy faces of them that’s got money, or
titles, or what not by it, you wouldn’t know nothin’ about it. Carriages
wouldn’t rise ten cents in the pound in the market. A stranger, like
you, if you warn’t told, wouldn’t know nothin’ was the matter above
common. There ain’t nothin’ to England shows its wealth like this.
“Says father to me when I came back, ‘Sam,’ sais he, ‘what struck you
most?’
“‘Ascot Races,’ sais I.
“‘Jist like you,’ sais he. ‘Hosses and galls is all you think of.
Wherever they be, there you are, that’s a fact. You’re a chip of the old
block, my boy. There ain’t nothin’ lake ‘em; is there?’
“Well, he was half right, was father. It’s worth seein’ for hosses and
galls too; but it’s worth seein’ for its carriage wealth alone. Heavens
and airth, what a rich country it must be that has such a show in that
line as England. Don’t talk of stock, for it may fail; or silver-smiths’
shops, for you can’t tell what’s plated; or jewels, for they may be
paste; or goods, for they may be worth only half nothin’; but talk of
the carriages, them’s the witnesses that don’t lie.
“And what do they say? ‘Calcutta keeps me, and China keeps me, and
Bot’ney Bay keeps me, and Canada keeps me, and Nova Scotia keeps me, and
the whales keep me, and the white bears keep me, and every thing on the
airth keeps me, every thing under the airth keeps me. In short, all the
world keeps me.’”
“No, not all the world, Sam,” said Mr. Hopewell; “there are some
repudiative States that _don’t keep me_; and if you go to the auction
rooms, you’ll see some beautiful carriages for sale, that say, ‘the
United States’ Bank used to keep me,’ and some more that say, ‘Nick
Biddle put me down.’”
“Minister, I won’t stand that,” said Mr. Slick. “I won’t stay here and
hear you belittle Uncle Sam that way for nothin’. He ain’t wuss than
John Bull, arter all. Ain’t there no swindle-banks here? Jist tell me
that. Don’t our liners fetch over, every trip, fellers that cut and run
from England, with their fobs filled with other men’s money? Ain’t
there lords in this country that know how to “repudiate” as well as
ring-tail-roarers in ourn. So come now, don’t throw stones till you put
your window-shutters to, or you may stand a smart chance of gettin’ your
own glass broke, that’s a fact.’
“And then, Squire, jist look at the carriages. I’ll bet you a goose and
trimmin’s you can’t find their ditto nowhere. They _are_ carriages, and
no mistake, that’s a fact. Look at the hosses, the harness, the paint,
the linin’s, the well-dressed, lazy, idle, infarnal hansum servants,
(these rascals, I suspicion, are picked out for their looks), look at
the whole thing all through the piece, take it, by and large, stock,
lock, and barrel, and it’s the dandy, that’s a fact. Don’t it cost
money, that’s all? Sumtotalize it then, and see what it all comes to.
It would make your hair stand on eend, I know. If it was all put into
figure, it would reach clean across the river; and if it was all put
into dollars, it would make a solid tire of silver, and hoop the world
round and round, like a wheel.
“If you want to give a man an idea of England, Squire, tell him of
Ascot; and if you want to cram him, get old Multiplication-table Joe H--
to cast it up; for he’ll make it come to twice as much as it railly is,
and that will choke him. Yes, Squire, _stick to Ascot_.”