Sporting notions of present days and past

PUTNEY AND THE CLUBS 187
forsake possibility of the anomalous occurrence.
I could swear to something of the sort, but would
not so much as affirm. Still, there are plenty
left among us who would lay a thousand pounds
to a farthing one way or another and prove their
case. Perhaps some of these will oblige. My
impression is that I recollect bets being made on
this question a long while ago, and settled in
favour of harvest-homing in the heart of smoky
London. After all, Holborn Viaduct way can
be no more against grain culture than is lots of
the country up North. I see little to choose
between that and, for instance, the productive
market- garden- cum -farmeries round about Man-
chester. Where the weak part of the story
comes in is round about Mr Passer Communis,
and, as William Cobbett said of the ants, his
abominable industry. So long as the cheeky
London sparrow can see any mortal thing to eat
and get at it, he does not care about being
properly gramnivorous or any other ivorous, so
long as it helps make up omnivorous. Gobbling
is his game, also his forte—directly he grows up,
that is, though for preference he is in the grub-
eating line while himself in what I may call the
green leaf.
Things go so rapidly now that scarcely suffi-
cient attention can be paid to current doings, so fast
is the rush into a future, to be left behind almost
before you are abreast of it. Real pictures with
live actors present themselves in almost instan-
taneous succession—at least, so it seems. Through
scant leisure being afforded for book-reading, the
constituency drops the habit, which falls out of its
old place in life. Of course the real thing is better
than any picture by brush, pen, or pencil ; yet I
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