Thirty Americans were in the party that, on the morning of the first of June, left the American Exchange at Charing Cross for Epsom Downs. It was a very jolly party, and none of the accompaniments were forgotten. An Englishman does nothing without a great plenty of eating and drinking, and so the inside of one of the immense omnibusses—“breaks” they call them—was filled with great hampers of lunch, and wine, and things of that nature.
As early as it was all the avenues leading to the Downs were literally packed with conveyances, to say nothing of the railroad trains which passed in quick succession, and such a motley procession! There were lords and ladies, merchants and clerks, prostitutes and gamblers, workingmen and beggars, sewing-girls and bar-maids,—in fact every sort and condition of people, who had for one day thrown care to the winds and were on pleasure bent.
LEAVING FOR THE DERBY.
SIGHTS AND SCENES.
The roads swarmed with vehicles, and there was as much of a surprise in the variety as in the number. There was My Lord in his dog cart, or, if a family man, in his gorgeous carriage, which does not differ materially from the American open barouche, save in the accommodations for the everlasting flunkies behind, without which no English establishment is complete. Then came the swarm of hansoms—which is a two-wheeled vehicle, with a calash top to it, carrying the driver on a high perch behind—the army of omnibusses, the tops covered with chaffing people, and the inside full of more sober ones, and add to these every variety of vehicle to which an animal can be attached, that would carry a human being, and you have some faint idea of the appearance of the roads leading to Epsom Downs on the 1st of June, A.D. 1881.