own time is presented in connection with horse-
racing—in itself an innocent, perhaps a useful
recreation. The vice of betting has been
consolidated into a regular profession, preying on
dupes in all ranks, from peers to apprentices.
Ancestral domains, and the stolen contents of
shop-tills, equally change hands through the
agency of the turf. Clubs, banks, and markets
have been established for the convenience of
the knaves, and the fools who bet. Their
transactions are quoted with grim regularity,
like the prices of the public funds; and they
have a special literature of their own, which,
from its success, proves the turf-gambling
public to have enormously increased since the
days of Eclipse.

SAVED FROM THE SEA.

"THE Albert medal, presented by the Queen
in person." Such is a record found in the
Registry of Wrecks and Casualties on the
British coast, opposite the name of Samuel
Popplestone, farmer, Start Point, Devon.
This is the only Albert medal given in the year
1866 for the rescue of drowning men.

On the 23rd of March, in that year, the
barque Spirit of the Ocean, with a crew of
eighteen hands, and twenty-four passengers
became unmanageable in a gale from that most
fatal quarter, the south-west. Part of the
crew were down in sickness, yearning with the
impatience of sick men to breathe the pure air
of England. They had just heard the pleasant
news that the ship was nearing the land, and
that by tomorrow they would see their friends
at home. But the wind rose, and soon blew
fiercely. The mates and passengers worked at
the pumps and rigging for the precious life,
but could do nothing. Soon, the currents
caught the ship, and bore her swiftly
towards the shore. The sails had been torn in
ribbons. Popplestone, from the crags above,
saw that if the vessel failed to clear a ledge
of rocks running treacherously out into the
sea, she would be lost. On the instant, he sent
one of his labourers to rouse the unconscious
villagers of Torr Cross, and then clambered down
the cliffs alone. Striding, scrambling, leaping
from rock to rock, often falling from the
slippery ridges, often sinking in holes covered by
deceitful sea-weed, often staggered by the
storm, or lifted from his feet by a hissing rush
of angry water, he struggled on, and at last
gained the outer line of rock over which the
sea rolled with awful power. But by this time
the ship had struck, and, beaten against the
rocks by every wave, was rapidly breaking up.
There were fewer souls on board her now, for
an avalanche of water had swept more than
one-half away. These poor souls lay fixed firmly
in crevices among the cliffs, or were torn piecemeal
on the sharp-edged reef. Still Popplestone
sees garments fluttering in the wind;
and though he heard no voice, he knew some
were there crying out for help. He flung the
rope he thoughtfully had carried with him
towards the ship. On the moment a mountain
wave lifted up the black hull, as if to crush him
down, but the same wave lifted him from the
ledge, and, like a piece of drift-wood, rolled
him from rock to rock to the very base of
the cliffs. Torn, bleeding, almost exhausted,
he took breath, and stood on his feet again.
The hull still outside the reef ground and
grated against the pitiless ledge. There were
still two if not three black figures upon the
wreck. He struggled on his painful way again.
Fortunately he reached the ledge, and flung his
rope, which he never parted with while rolling
along the reef. First, the mate seized the cord,
and was dragged to the beach; then one of the
crew was saved; but looking out before flinging
his rope again, Popplestone saw nothing
but a tangled mass of broken timbers, and all
the men were dead but two. Popplestone, with
the mate and seaman, managed to reach the
base of the cliffs, while the waves rushed round
and over them, and they were in safety.

All round the coast of England, and especially
where long close files of funereal marks indicate
on the Wreck Chart, the frequency of wreck
and death, a little red boat printed in colours
shows where a lifeboat lies under its shed, ready
to be pushed through the wild surf the
moment a vessel is known to be in danger in the
offing. In the year 1866 two hundred and seven
of them kept sentinel in the harbours and creeks
of England. When the mercury fell, or the
scud flew thick and fast, the coxswain of each
boat looked to her and saw that all was in
the proper place and ready. A gun heard
booming over the roar of the storm, a blue-light
revealing for a moment the gloomy cliffs, the
breakers, and the peril of the ship, were enough.
The whole village is now upon the beach,
clergymen, gentry, physicians, seamen,
insensible to the storm or rain. Under the shelter
of the pier, or boat-house, the women flock
together. They know that husbands, sons and
brothers will go out, and that a lifeboat's crew
is not always safe. While the sea tears up the
beach and rattles a deluge of stones and sand
and sea-wrack up the village street, the boatmen
launch the lifeboat. Volunteers of all
grades are not wanting. No man thinks of
peril when seamen and passengers are in the
jaws of death. The great difficulty is to get
the boat once clear from shore. She is pushed
out perhaps with all her crew on board—men
who could tell of many a danger shared
together. Three, four, five times, the boat may
be driven back, but the sea shall be mastered.
The men are careless of hurts or bruises. If one
be disabled there are twenty to fill his place,
and even women claim to pull an oar with their
husbands or their lovers. They all know the
story of Grace Darling. But the men will go;
married or single, old or young. If possible
the lifeboat is placed under the lee, of the ship
in danger, while the wrecked men drop one
by one into the arms of the rescuers, or trust
themselves to the waves. Not seldom, are both