PORTRAIT OF PIPELING,

Engraved by Mr. Scott,

FROM A

Painting by Mr. Clifton Tomson, of Nottingham.

PIPELING is a capital three

year old colt, and the property of Sitwell Sitwell, Esq. M. P. He was got by Sir Peter, out of Rally, by Trumpator. Rally is the dam likewise of Hyale, given in our Magazine for January 1892.

RIGHT OF THE ROAD.

To the Editors of the Sporting Magazine.

GENTLEMEN,

AVING been presentata trial

Alvanley, in the Court of Common Pleas, on Monday the 14th inftant, I avail myself of the first opportunity to trouble you with an accurate state of the evidence, as delivered in Court; the verdict of the Jury; and lastly, with your permiffion, a few remarks upon both; as they in the result seem materially to affect the rule of right, as established by

the judicious experience of the late Lord Mansfield, and by which the person, horse, and carriage of every traveller upon the road, was intended and supposed to be in future protected.

EMBDEN . MAUDUIT.

said to be a respectable conveyancer THE plaintiff in this cause, is in Furnival's Inn, and the defendant, a gentleman of large fortune and extenfive liberality, inhabiting Newcastle house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. In some afternoon of Auguft laft, the plaintiff, Capt. Head, late of the Worcester militia; and Capt. Buck, late of the Eaft Kent, set off about fix o'clock from Furnival's Inn, on an excurfion to Banftead; having dined together previous to their setting out; the plaintiff and his servant lad in one chair or gig, his two friends in the

laft, went to prove their travelling not more than nine or ten miles an hour; that just before their entrance into Mitcham, nine miles from London, they observed, at the distance of nearly or fully an hundred yards, a chariot on their side the road; that, continuing their travelling pace, and not observing the coachman to deviate at all from the Gg 2

side

side and track he had taken, till within twenty yards of them, both master and servant vociferated loudly, when, and not till then, the coachman began very slowly, reluctantly, and sulkily, to bear his horses heads over some centrical gravel, to his near and proper side of the road; but this he did in such cool, deliberate, and psalm-singing time, that, although the plaintiff's near wheel was proved to have come upon the edge of the causeway, on his own side, yet his off-wheel came in contact with the off-wheel of the chariot, which overturned the chair, broke the body to pieces, disunited the splinter-bar from the carriage, and snapt both shafts in the middle; with which, and the splinter-bar, the horse ran away: and after continuing his career in fright till almost exhausted, he threw himself against the window of an inn, from thence to the sign-post, where he fell, by which he was completely ruined; and in opposition to every professional endeavour for his recovery, died in three weeks. Mr. Embden sustained some slight bruises, in no way alarming; but, for the loss of his horse, and the injury to his chaise, he brought the present action against Mr. Mauduit, the owner of the chariot, which was then empty, upon its return from Sutton, where it had been with a Mr. Hague, proceeding on his journey to visit Mr. Mauduit, then at Brighton.

The junior master of the Mitcham stages, who happened to drive up with his coach immediately after the accident, proceeded with others to measure the width of the road, and gave evidence in Court, that the carriage road was twentyone feet wide from causeway to causeway; that the track of the off or outer wheel of the plaintiff, was only six feet from the foot path on his own side, and that he had not

an inch to spare, while the distance the defendant's coachman had for his chariot, was twenty-one feet. Thus far on the part of the plaintiff when the evidence closed.-Upon the part of the defence, a pantomimic and variegated collection of witnesses appeared to "suppose the plaintiff and his friends had drank wine after dinner;"" that they drove very furiously;" and that, "if they had been in the carriage road, and had not got out of the way, they must have been killed." This sort of speculative evidence rendered the trial tedious in progress, and uncertain in the event; and the Court, which was crowded for near five hours, was anxiously alive for the verdict, which was at length pronounced in favour of the defendant.

With this verdict, gentlemen, I have nothing to do, or with those between whom it was tried; but I must solicit permission from you, who, I conclude, occasionally ride or drive as well as your neighbours, to offer a few remarks to my brother sportsmen, upon a subject in which I conceive the life, or personal safety of every spirited individual, is so materially concerned. It is the fate of some men to be dull in intellectual comprehension; some horses to be slow in action; wouldbe-orators to be tardy in speech; and for some to prefer porter, while others drink wine: envy amongst the lower classes, is generally a passion predominant against the superior order; and perhaps the petty chapmen of Mitcham, conceive no man, except a madman, is entitled to go a more gentleman-like-pace, than their own taxed-cart. I believe, it will be readily admitted by you, as it is by the law of the road, and the law of custom, that by each keeping to his, or their near side of the road, for mutual advantage and mutual safety, the

lives