Two of the many passengers by a certain late Sunday evening train, Mr. Thomas Idle and Mr. Francis Goodchild, yielded up their tickets at a little rotten platform (converted into artificial touchwood by smoke and ashes), deep in the manufacturing bosom of Yorkshire.  A mysterious bosom it appeared, upon a damp, dark, Sunday night, dashed through in the train to the music of the whirling wheels, the panting of the engine, and the part-singing of hundreds of third-class excursionists, whose vocal efforts ‘bobbed arayound’ from sacred to profane, from hymns, to our transatlantic sisters the Yankee Gal and Mairy Anne, in a remarkable way.  There seemed to have been some large vocal gathering near to every lonely station on the line.  No town was visible, no village was visible, no light was visible; but, a multitude got out singing, and a multitude got in singing, and the second multitude took up the hymns, and adopted our transatlantic sisters, and sang of their own egregious wickedness, and of their bobbing arayound, and of how the ship it was ready and the wind it was fair, and they were bayound for the sea, Mairy Anne, until they in their turn became a getting-out multitude, and were replaced by another getting-in multitude, who did the same.  And at every station, the getting-in multitude, with an artistic reference to the completeness of their chorus, incessantly cried, as with one voice while scuffling into the carriages, ‘We mun aa’ gang toogither!’

The singing and the multitudes had trailed off as the lonely places were left and the great towns were neared, and the way had lain as silently as a train’s way ever can, over the vague black streets of the great gulfs of towns, and among their branchless woods of vague black chimneys.  These towns looked, in the cinderous wet, as though they had one and all been on fire and were just put out—a dreary and quenched panorama, many miles long.

Thus, Thomas and Francis got to Leeds; of which enterprising and important commercial centre it may be observed with delicacy, that you must either like it very much or not at all.  Next day, the first of the Race-Week, they took train to Doncaster.

And instantly the character, both of travellers and of luggage, entirely changed, and no other business than race-business any longer existed on the face of the earth.  The talk was all of horses and ‘John Scott.’  Guards whispered behind their hands to station-masters, of horses and John Scott.  Men in cut-away coats and speckled cravats fastened with peculiar pins, and with the large bones of their legs developed under tight trousers, so that they should look as much as possible like horses’ legs, paced up and down by twos at junction-stations, speaking low and moodily of horses and John Scott.  The young clergyman in the black strait-waistcoat, who occupied the middle seat of the carriage, expounded in his peculiar pulpit-accent to the young and lovely Reverend Mrs. Crinoline, who occupied the opposite middle-seat, a few passages of rumour relative to ‘Oartheth, my love, and Mithter John Eth-COTT.’  A bandy vagabond, with a head like a Dutch cheese, in a fustian stable-suit, attending on a horse-box and going about the platforms with a halter hanging round his neck like a Calais burgher of the ancient period much degenerated, was courted by the best society, by reason of what he had to hint, when not engaged in eating straw, concerning ‘t’harses and Joon Scott.’  The engine-driver himself, as he applied one eye to his large stationary double-eye-glass on the engine, seemed to keep the other open, sideways, upon horses and John Scott.

Breaks and barriers at Doncaster Station to keep the crowd off; temporary wooden avenues of ingress and egress, to help the crowd on.  Forty extra porters sent down for this present blessed Race-Week, and all of them making up their betting-books in the lamp-room or somewhere else, and none of them to come and touch the luggage.  Travellers disgorged into an open space, a howling wilderness of idle men.  All work but race-work at a stand-still; all men at a stand-still.  ‘Ey my word!  Deant ask noon o’ us to help wi’ t’luggage.  Bock your opinion loike a mon.  Coom!  Dang it, coom, t’harses and Joon Scott!’  In the midst of the idle men, all the fly horses and omnibus horses of Doncaster and parts adjacent, rampant, rearing, backing, plunging, shying—apparently the result of their hearing of nothing but their own order and John Scott.

Grand Dramatic Company from London for the Race-Week.  Poses Plastiques in the Grand Assembly Room up the Stable-Yard at seven and nine each evening, for the Race-Week.  Grand Alliance Circus in the field beyond the bridge, for the Race-Week.  Grand Exhibition of Aztec Lilliputians, important to all who want to be horrified cheap, for the Race-Week.  Lodgings, grand and not grand, but all at grand prices, ranging from ten pounds to twenty, for the Grand Race-Week!

Rendered giddy enough by these things, Messieurs Idle and Goodchild repaired to the quarters they had secured beforehand, and Mr. Goodchild looked down from the window into the surging street.

‘By Heaven, Tom!’ cried he, after contemplating it, ‘I am in the Lunatic Asylum again, and these are all mad people under the charge of a body of designing keepers!’

All through the Race-Week, Mr. Goodchild never divested himself of this idea.  Every day he looked out of window, with something of the dread of Lemuel Gulliver looking down at men after he returned home from the horse-country; and every day he saw the Lunatics, horse-mad, betting-mad, drunken-mad, vice-mad, and the designing Keepers always after them.  The idea pervaded, like the second colour in shot-silk, the whole of Mr. Goodchild’s impressions.  They were much as follows:

Monday, mid-day.  Races not to begin until to-morrow, but all the mob-Lunatics out, crowding the pavements of the one main street of pretty and pleasant Doncaster, crowding the road, particularly crowding the outside of the Betting Rooms, whooping and shouting loudly after all passing vehicles.  Frightened lunatic horses occasionally running away, with infinite clatter.  All degrees of men, from peers to paupers, betting incessantly.  Keepers very watchful, and taking all good chances.  An awful family likeness among the Keepers, to Mr. Palmer and Mr. Thurtell.  With some knowledge of expression and some acquaintance with heads (thus writes Mr. Goodchild), I never have seen anywhere, so many repetitions of one class of countenance and one character of head (both evil) as in this street at this time.  Cunning, covetousness, secrecy, cold calculation, hard callousness and dire insensibility, are the uniform Keeper characteristics.  Mr. Palmer passes me five times in five minutes, and, so I go down the street, the back of Mr. Thurtell’s skull is always going on before me.

Monday evening.  Town lighted up; more Lunatics out than ever; a complete choke and stoppage of the thoroughfare outside the Betting Rooms.  Keepers, having dined, pervade the Betting Rooms, and sharply snap at the moneyed Lunatics.  Some Keepers flushed with drink, and some not, but all close and calculating.  A vague echoing roar of ‘t’harses’ and ‘t’races’ always rising in the air, until midnight, at about which period it dies away in occasional drunken songs and straggling yells.  But, all night, some unmannerly drinking-house in the neighbourhood opens its mouth at intervals and spits out a man too drunk to be retained: who thereupon makes what uproarious protest may be left in him, and either falls asleep where he tumbles, or is carried off in custody.

Tuesday morning, at daybreak.  A sudden rising, as it were out of the earth, of all the obscene creatures, who sell ‘correct cards of the races.’  They may have been coiled in corners, or sleeping on door-steps, and, having all passed the night under the same set of circumstances, may all want to circulate their blood at the same time; but, however that may be, they spring into existence all at once and together, as though a new Cadmus had sown a race-horse’s teeth.  There is nobody up, to buy the cards; but, the cards are madly cried.  There is no patronage to quarrel for; but, they madly quarrel and fight.  Conspicuous among these hy?nas, as breakfast-time discloses, is a fearful creature in the general semblance of a man: shaken off his next-to-no legs by drink and devilry, bare-headed and bare-footed, with a great shock of hair like a horrible broom, and nothing on him but a ragged pair of trousers and a pink glazed-calico coat—made on him—so very tight that it is as evident that he could never take it off, as that he never does.  This hideous apparition, inconceivably drunk, has a terrible power of making a gong-like imitation of the braying of an ass: which feat requires that he should lay his right jaw in his begrimed right paw, double himself up, and shake his bray out of himself, with much staggering on his next-to-no legs, and much twirling of his horrible broom, as if it were a mop.  From the present minute, when he comes in sight holding up his cards to the windows, and hoarsely proposing purchase to My Lord, Your Excellency, Colonel, the Noble Captain, and Your Honourable Worship—from the present minute until the Grand Race-Week is finished, at all hours of the morning, evening, day, and night, shall the town reverberate, at capricious intervals, to the brays of this frightful animal the Gong-donkey.

No very great racing to-day, so no very great amount of vehicles: though there is a good sprinkling, too: from farmers’ carts and gigs, to carriages with post-horses and to fours-in-hand, mostly coming by the road from York, and passing on straight through the main street to the Course.  A walk in the wrong direction may be a better thing for Mr. Goodchild to-day than the Course, so he walks in the wrong direction.  Everybody gone to the races.  Only children in the street.  Grand Alliance Circus deserted; not one Star-Rider left; omnibus which forms the Pay-Place, having on separate panels Pay here for the Boxes, Pay here for the Pit, Pay here for the Gallery, hove down in a corner and locked up; nobody near the tent but the man on his knees on the grass, who is making the paper balloons for the Star young gentlemen to jump through to-night.  A pleasant road, pleasantly wooded.  No labourers working in the fields; all gone ‘t’races.’  The few late wenders of their way ‘t’races,’ who are yet left driving on the road, stare in amazement at the recluse who is not going ‘t’races.’  Roadside innkeeper has gone ‘t’races.’  Turnpike-man has gone ‘t’races.’  His thrifty wife, washing clothes at the toll-house door, is going ‘t’races’ to-morrow.  Perhaps there may be no one left to take the toll to-morrow; who knows?  Though assuredly that would be neither turnpike-like nor Yorkshire-like.  The very wind and dust seem to be hurrying ‘t’races,’ as they briskly pass the only wayfarer on the road.  In the distance, the Railway Engine, waiting at the town-end, shrieks despairingly.  Nothing but the difficulty of getting off the Line, restrains that Engine from going ‘t’races,’ too, it is very clear.

At night, more Lunatics out than last night—and more Keepers.  The latter very active at the Betting Rooms, the street in front of which is now impassable.  Mr. Palmer as before.  Mr. Thurtell as before.  Roar and uproar as before.  Gradual subsidence as before.  Unmannerly drinking-house expectorates as before.  Drunken negro-melodists, Gong-donkey, and correct cards, in the night.

On Wednesday morning, the morning of the great St. Leger, it becomes apparent that there has been a great influx since yesterday, both of Lunatics and Keepers.  The families of the tradesmen over the way are no longer within human ken; their places know them no more; ten, fifteen, and twenty guinea-lodgers fill them.  At the pastry-cook’s second-floor window, a Keeper is brushing Mr. Thurtell’s hair—thinking it his own.  In the wax-chandler’s attic, another Keeper is putting on Mr. Palmer’s braces.  In the gunsmith’s nursery, a Lunatic is shaving himself.  In the serious stationer’s best sitting-room, three Lunatics are taking a combination-breakfast, praising the (cook’s) devil, and drinking neat brandy in an atmosphere of last midnight’s cigars.  No family sanctuary is free from our Angelic messengers—we put up at the Angel—who in the guise of extra waiters for the grand Race-Week, rattle in and out of the most secret chambers of everybody’s house, with dishes and tin covers, decanters, soda-water bottles, and glasses.  An hour later.  Down the street and up the street, as far as eyes can see and a good deal farther, there is a dense crowd; outside the Betting Rooms it is like a great struggle at a theatre door—in the days of theatres; or at the vestibule of the Spurgeon temple—in the days of Spurgeon.  An hour later.  Fusing into this crowd, and somehow getting through it, are all kinds of conveyances, and all kinds of foot-passengers; carts, with brick-makers and brick-makeresses jolting up and down on planks; drags, with the needful grooms behind, sitting cross-armed in the needful manner, and slanting themselves backward from the soles of their boots at the needful angle; postboys, in the shining hats and smart jackets of the olden time, when stokers were not; beautiful Yorkshire horses, gallantly driven by their own breeders and masters.  Under every pole, and every shaft, and every horse, and every wheel as it would seem, the Gong-donkey—metallically braying, when not struggling for life, or whipped out of the way.

By one o’clock, all this stir has gone out of the streets, and there is no one left in them but Francis Goodchild.  Francis Goodchild will not be left in them long; for, he too is on his way, ‘t’races.’

A most beautiful sight, Francis Goodchild finds ‘t’races’ to be, when he has left fair Doncaster behind him, and comes out on the free course, with its agreeable prospect, its quaint Red House oddly changing and turning as Francis turns, its green grass, and fresh heath.  A free course and an easy one, where Francis can roll smoothly where he will, and can choose between the start, or the coming-in, or the turn behind the brow of the hill, or any out-of-the-way point where he lists to see the throbbing horses straining every nerve, and making the sympathetic earth throb as they come by.  Francis much delights to be, not in the Grand Stand, but where he can see it, rising against the sky with its vast tiers of little white dots of faces, and its last high rows and corners of people, looking like pins stuck into an enormous pincushion—not quite so symmetrically as his orderly eye could wish, when people change or go away.  When the race is nearly run out, it is as good as the race to him to see the flutter among the pins, and the change in them from dark to light, as hats are taken off and waved.  Not less full of interest, the loud anticipation of the winner’s name, the swelling, and the final, roar; then, the quick dropping of all the pins out of their places, the revelation of the shape of the bare pincushion, and the closing-in of the whole host of Lunatics and Keepers, in the rear of the three horses with bright-coloured riders, who have not yet quite subdued their gallop though the contest is over.

Mr. Goodchild would appear to have been by no means free from lunacy himself at ‘t’races,’ though not of the prevalent kind.  He is suspected by Mr. Idle to have fallen into a dreadful state concerning a pair of little lilac gloves and a little bonnet that he saw there.  Mr. Idle asserts, that he did afterwards repeat at the Angel, with an appearance of being lunatically seized, some rhapsody to the following effect: ‘O little lilac gloves!  And O winning little bonnet, making in conjunction with her golden hair quite a Glory in the sunlight round the pretty head, why anything in the world but you and me!  Why may not this day’s running-of horses, to all the rest: of precious sands of life to me—be prolonged through an everlasting autumn-sunshine, without a sunset!  Slave of the Lamp, or Ring, strike me yonder gallant equestrian Clerk of the Course, in the scarlet coat, motionless on the green grass for ages!  Friendly Devil on Two Sticks, for ten times ten thousands years, keep Blink-Bonny jibbing at the post, and let us have no start!  Arab drums, powerful of old to summon Genii in the desert, sound of yourselves and raise a troop for me in the desert of my heart, which shall so enchant this dusty barouche (with a conspicuous excise-plate, resembling the Collector’s door-plate at a turnpike), that I, within it, loving the little lilac gloves, the winning little bonnet, and the dear unknown-wearer with the golden hair, may wait by her side for ever, to see a Great St. Leger that shall never be run!’

Thursday morning.  After a tremendous night of crowding, shouting, drinking-house expectoration, Gong-donkey, and correct cards.  Symptoms of yesterday’s gains in the way of drink, and of yesterday’s losses in the way of money, abundant.  Money-losses very great.  As usual, nobody seems to have won; but, large losses and many losers are unquestionable facts.  Both Lunatics and Keepers, in general very low.  Several of both kinds look in at the chemist’s while Mr. Goodchild is making a purchase there, to be ‘picked up.’  One red-eyed Lunatic, flushed, faded, and disordered, enters hurriedly and cries savagely, ‘Hond us a gloss of sal volatile in wather, or soom dommed thing o’ thot sart!’  Faces at the Betting Rooms very long, and a tendency to bite nails observable.  Keepers likewise given this morning to standing about solitary, with their hands in their pockets, looking down at their boots as they fit them into cracks of the pavement, and then looking up whistling and walking away.  Grand Alliance Circus out, in procession; buxom lady-member of Grand Alliance, in crimson riding-habit, fresher to look at, even in her paint under the day sky, than the cheeks of Lunatics or Keepers.  Spanish Cavalier appears to have lost yesterday, and jingles his bossed bridle with disgust, as if he were paying.  Reaction also apparent at the Guildhall opposite, whence certain pickpockets come out handcuffed together, with that peculiar walk which is never seen under any other circumstances—a walk expressive of going to jail, game, but still of jails being in bad taste and arbitrary, and how would you like it if it was you instead of me, as it ought to be!  Mid-day.  Town filled as yesterday, but not so full; and emptied as yesterday, but not so empty.  In the evening, Angel ordinary where every Lunatic and Keeper has his modest daily meal of turtle, venison, and wine, not so crowded as yesterday, and not so noisy.  At night, the theatre.  More abstracted faces in it than one ever sees at public assemblies; such faces wearing an expression which strongly reminds Mr. Goodchild of the boys at school who were ‘going up next,’ with their arithmetic or mathematics.  These boys are, no doubt, going up to-morrow with their sums and figures.  Mr. Palmer and Mr. Thurtell in the boxes O. P.  Mr. Thurtell and Mr. Palmer in the boxes P. S.  The firm of Thurtell, Palmer, and Thurtell, in the boxes Centre.  A most odious tendency observable in these distinguished gentlemen to put vile constructions on sufficiently innocent phrases in the play, and then to applaud them in a Satyr-like manner.  Behind Mr. Goodchild, with a party of other Lunatics and one Keeper, the express incarnation of the thing called a ‘gent.’  A gentleman born; a gent manufactured.  A something with a scarf round its neck, and a slipshod speech issuing from behind the scarf; more depraved, more foolish, more ignorant, more unable to believe in any noble or good thing of any kind, than the stupidest Bosjesman.  The thing is but a boy in years, and is addled with drink.  To do its company justice, even its company is ashamed of it, as it drawls its slang criticisms on the representation, and inflames Mr. Goodchild with a burning ardour to fling it into the pit.  Its remarks are so horrible, that Mr. Goodchild, for the moment, even doubts whether that is a wholesome Art, which sets women apart on a high floor before such a thing as this, though as good as its own sisters, or its own mother—whom Heaven forgive for bringing it into the world!  But, the consideration that a low nature must make a low world of its own to live in, whatever the real materials, or it could no more exist than any of us could without the sense of touch, brings Mr. Goodchild to reason: the rather, because the thing soon drops its downy chin upon its scarf, and slobbers itself asleep.

Friday Morning.  Early fights.  Gong-donkey, and correct cards.  Again, a great set towards the races, though not so great a set as on Wednesday.  Much packing going on too............