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TWO FAMOUS BOOKMAKING LEVIATHANS How Harry Hill Got His First Stake Enormous Transactions of Davis Writing of two of the biggun bookmakers of England eighty years ago Thormanby spins the following interesting yarn in the London Sportsman 1 write of the peucilers of a lime within the recollection of many living veterans of sport And 1 give lirst place to Harry Hill From the humble position of boots at a Manchester hotel Hill rose to the highest position on the turf as a commissioner a man who made ills 50000 book regularly on every big event during the year His own story of his lirst slice of luck was the following followingHe He attended Doncaster to see the Cup run for one year and without much trouble got rid of all his brass except about live shillings which though not enough to pay his fare by coach back to Manchester was still enough to take him there by more humble conveyance namely the wagon and walking While on shanks pony by which lie meant to go as far as Thurlstone he missed his road just after he had crossed the Dearn River and on stopping at a small cottage to inquire his way noticed a window in which a square had been stopped up with the manuscript copy of an old ballad in order to keep out the draughts while the pane next to it bad been strengthened by pasting on It a U20 Bank of England note noteThe The aged couple to whom the cottage belonged did not know the value of the piece of paper they had used for so common a purpose in fact they could neither lead nor write and so Hill bad little ditHculty In buying the picture found months be ¬ fore on the high road for halfacrown Again in for funds he like Whitlington turned back on his footsteps Invested part of his windfall on the next days events was fortunate on that and the other days as well and cleared altogether over 100 To his credit be it said he repaid the old folks the 100 100It It was Lord George Bentinck who gave him the lirst Iegnp which enabled him to make a name and fortune on the turf Lord George took a liking to the slangy and illiterate exboots and seeing that he jwssessed exceptional shrewdness and business capacity entrusted Hill with his com ¬ missions Vrom that moment Harrys fortune was made His first grand coup was when Bloomsbury won the Derby iu the historical snowstorm of 183 Harry made a large sum by that event and through a dispute over the race attracted tho attention of Baron Martin who afterward became one of his fastest friends But Hill with that shrewd com ¬ mon sense which was the most salient point of his character always stuck to Lord George and exe ¬ cuted for that famous statesman some of the largest commissions ever entrusted to an agent as for instance when Miss Ells won the Goodwood Cup Lord George Bentlncks claim was 85000 every penny of which was collected by Hill and paid over whilst at the same time he landed a good sum for himself At Newmarket when given the Gai cr commission for the Derby within two hours he got on for his lordship 225000 and this sum before many days were over he Increased to 500000 This brought Gaper to 5 to 1 and so anx ¬ ious was Lord George to win that he was heard to say Egad Id feed Gaper on gold from henceforth if that would insure his victory But the Na polean of the turf was destined never to achieve the great ambition of his life besides which all the prizes of the world were valueless in his eyes the Blue Riband of the turf Gaper came in fourth but his owners pecuniary losses were not heavy as by John Scotts persuasion he had hedged his money and won 15000 on Cotherstone the winner winnerThough Though Hill managed in one way or another to accumulate a colossal fortune he never aped the swell though he kept a line house he never desired to be a country gentleman like Gully a town inag niflco like Padwick or Swindell who however were money lenders lirst and Iwokmakcrs afterward He was rather of the Jem Bland order especially in his love for low company No amount of money or Intercourse with goodclass men could wean him from the tastes of his early days the innyard and the taproom and he was never so much at home as when attired in his Invariable suit of illfitting rusty black which looked as if it had been made for his grandfather his grimy hardlooking face lit up with a prin he presided at the head of a table surrounded by ostlers jockeys and the nonde ¬ scripts of the turf from which he himself had sprung1 Here lie was king everybody roared at his queer stories and the louder they roared the more drinks he stood Most of his evenings especially after he had retired from l 6okmakiug were spent at the Coach and Horses in Dover street Piccadilly He died a wretched blind old man in 1SSO and left ao will The only property he was known to bo possessed of was Ackworth Park which he hail t purchased from Gully What became of all the jrest f his wealth remains I believe to this day a mystery A othr famoBs bookmaker of the highest type typetB tB DeTiitlian Davis Like most other famous famousr r bettIogn H Dmyls WHS a selfmade man He began Messrs Cubbitt t Co the wellknown contractors It was as a backer that he made his lirst great coup lie stood Sir Tat ton Sykcs for the Two Thousand Guineas of 1S4 n d won such a pot of money that lie was able to give up carpentering and set up regularly In business as a professional betting man As Davis1 customers became more and more numerous he was pestered out of his life by the endless string of questions he was constantly called upon to an ¬ swer as to the prices of individual horses in the betting market This interfered greatly with the iKxiklng of the bets and at last a happy thought suggested itself by which lie might save himself the trouble of answering queries and devote himself entirely to doing business He would have all the prices written out tabulated and hung up where every one could consult them This was the origin of the famous betting lists which were In vogue iu Ijondon until the Act of 1S53 suppressed them themThe The lirst of these lists of Davis was hung In the Durham Arms Serle street Lincolns Inn Fields and so enormous was the trade which It brought to the house that in a few years the bnxom landlady retired in possession of a very handsome fortune The second list was posted at Iarrs In Long Acre and there Davis and his clerks might have been seen standing behind big bankers ledgers entering the bets as fast as their pens could go So safe and sound was Davis by this time that one of his winning tickets was always considered everywhere as negotiable as a Bank of England note noteStrange Strange to say Davis was singularly unlucky in his books on the Derby and Oaks though on the llrstnimcd he sometimes made one as high as fO OOO His lirst heavy hit is said to have been for ifOOOOO over The Cur for the Ccsarcwitch but it was with the Derby that his worst reverses were associated He was 2r0000 to the bad over The Flying Dutchman and he had three terrible years running 1810 ISO and ISol Probably a quarter of i million would hardly have covered his losses on the Kpsom victories of Voltlgcur Daniel OUourkc and Teildington Perhaps the worst blow of the three was the triumph of Sir Joseph Hawleys horse It was as Argus said at the time a blow that struck him between wind and water But he look no more notice of it than he was wont to do of his washing bill although his losses were esti ¬ mated at 0000 paying them with as much indif ¬ ference as the Loiulon and Westminster Bank would have done Amongst others to whom he had lost large sums was Mr Charles GreviJIe whose posthu ¬ mous Memoirs are the most famous chroniquo scandaleuse of our time and Mr Greville was somewhat surprised and perhaps a good deal more rejoiced to receive on the morning of the Oaks a check for 75000 from Mr Davis It was a judicious act of promptitude for it at once put an end to all suspense on the part of those who were looking for ¬ ward with some nervousness to settling day and it stamped Davis as a very mine of Peru PeruBut But be had his revenge in the autumn when Mrs TaTt and Truth amply recouped him for his summer losses the two of them probably bringing him in 2r0000 After his winter Derby deposits came in lie was supposed to have entered on his lSr 2 cam ¬ paign with fOr0000 at the London and Westminster Bank the heads of which establishment it is saidi would rise to accommodate him at any hour of tho night That statement however must I think be taken with a grain of salt At this point of his career Davis fairly deserved his title of Leviathan for he conducted his business on a scale never known before lie resembled in fact Captain OKclly in his zenith who when he was asked after taking a heavy bet where Ids estates lay responded By the Hvwers I hcv the map o them about me and produced a perfect roll of bank notes or the old miser near Doncaster who went to a great land sale in his filthy rags and a hay band around bis waist and astonished the auctioneer who wondered where the deposit was to come from by holding up a iOOOOO bank note one of the few ever made and saying Heros the cock Ive got the old hen at home Henceforward the tide of 111 luck always flowed steadily against him at Kpsom Daniel OUourke Is said to have cost him 50000 Catherine Hayes wst him al out the same and West Australian 210000 of which 150000 went in a check to Mr Bowes BowesOn On the St Legerand at post betting the Levia ¬ than was uniformly lucky lie had a great fancy too for backing riders and there his good fortune was amazing Indeed at one time he preferred backing jockeys to backing horses Fordham or The Kid as he always called him was Davis particular favorite and so highly did he think both of Georges luck tind horsemanship that he often declined to lay against one of The Kids mounts Like a good many other bookmakers Davis was no great judge of a horse in fact could hardly tell a good one from a bad one when they were standing still but he had a marvelously keen eye for de ¬ tecting when they were in trouble and would keep on betting until they were twenty yards from the post and if it were a very near thing after they iiad passed it 1 never beard of his nerve failing but once and that was when Bon Mot won the Liverpool Cup He was just beginning to fire heavily Into this strange OoOguinea imposter when he found him ¬ self compelled in consequence of a nervous head ¬ ache to close his lxK k and sit down and as luck would have it he won 15000 instead of losing nearly twice that amount amountBut But the incident was of more serious import than he or anyone else imagined lie had laid heavily against Kssedarius for the Cup and the anxiety affected his mind He entirely lost his bead and became so alarmed lest he should lie unable to pay his losses that his health broke down and on the morning of the race he looked the mere wreck of his former self The victory of the little Irish outsider Bon Mot had the effect of a restora ¬ tive but Davis knew that he bad bad a warning and that the ceaseless anxieties of his business were beginning to tell upon him He was no longer the man ho was when after Flying Dutchmans Derby he paid away almost every penny of his capital with the calmness of a stoic Although he had an iron constitution and the lungs of a Stenlor his strength was unequal to the tremendous and barrassing strain which his immense business threw upon hiiii inces ¬ santly and lie had the good sense to lay down bis pencil forever at the end of the season of 1857 On the Friday in the Iloughton meeting of that year he retired into private life taking with him not only the handsome fortune which be had gained by his own skill and energy but also the respect esteem and good wishes of all who had ever had any dealings with him
