Young gentlemen went eagerly to Moulsey to see the Slasher punch the Pet's head, or the Negro beat the Jew's nose to a jelly.

The island rang as yet with the tooting horns and rattling teams of mail-coaches; a gay sight was the road in merry England in those days, before steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over.

To travel in coaches, to drive coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the pretty chambermaid under the chin, were the delight of men who were young not very long ago.

Who ever thought of writing to the Times then?
"Biffin," I warrant, did not grudge his money, and "A Thirsty Soul" paid cheerfully for his drink.
The road was an institution, the ring was an institution.

Men rallied round them; and, not without a kind conservatism, expatiated upon the benefits with which they endowed the country, and the evils which would occur when they should be no more:--decay of English spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of horses, and so forth, and so forth.