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BETTORS OF OLD-TIME ENGLISH RACING. Eccentric and Extravagant Plungers Who Literally Threw Away Fortunes. In the course of a series of articles illustrative of English racing of long ago, a correspondent of London Sportsman presents some entertaining pen pictures, and of some worthies of a fighting and gambling age says: "It is in the guise of a gossip that I here present myself to the reader, and 1 claim but the indulgence commonly allowed to such purveyors of amusement. In this anecdotal medley I give first place, as a matter of course, to the turf, the greatest and most universally popular of all our national sports. There was never a time in the history of horse racing when wagering was not inseparably connected with it. The first great plunger of whom I have found any record was George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, one of the most remarkable men even in the age so rich in men of mark as the spacious times of great Elizabeth. If Jou look up George Clifford iii any dictionary of biography you will find him designated eminent naval commander, though in Vincents well known work he is styled with less , courtesy, but perhaps more truth, private or privateer. Now sailors, as a rule, are not sup- posed to have much knowledge of horses, though I Admiral Rous was a notable exception and George I Cliford was another. i "His personal appearance was enough to have , made him a noteworthy personage in any com-i pany. His singularly handsome face, his powerful, athletic, symmetrical form, his bold and haughty carriage, his magnificent dress must have made him conspicuous even among the host of tall and proper men that the Airgin Queen loved to gather round her. He was, indeed, high in favor with Her Majesty. No less than seven i expeditions did George Clifford fit out at ids own . expense against the Spaniards, and not even Fran- cis Drake himself fought the hated enemies of England with niore spirit and persistence and romantic valor than the gay and reckless Earl of Cumberland, who staked his money on the success of those adventurous cruises with a born gamblers recklessness. For a born gambler he , was, and when he found that neither pluudcr-r ing Spanish galleons and caracks, nor the less noble pastime of dice and cards afforded a full . scope: for his adventurous spirit, or satisfied his craving for excitement and speculation, lie took " to horse racing. That entrancing sport seems to i. have given him the sensation to the full his pas-r siou for gambling. One after another his estates passed from his hands to pay his racing debts s and the expenses of the enormous stnd he maintained. And there would have soon been nothing 10 left for his heirs had not a fatal sickness struck 10 Uim flown aa put Utt end. to lU plunging. He died. I learn from a contemporary record, a very penitent man in the duchy house, called the Savoy, October 30, 1005, aged forty-seven years mid two months. "Of a very different and far more common type was the next plunger of whm I find any records in the annals of the turf, to wit, Sir Richard Gargrave, Bart., of Nostal and Kinsley, in Aork-shire. He succeeded to the title and estates in 1003, the year in which George Clifford. Earl of Cumberland died, and the vastness of his possessions may be gathered from the fact that he could ride from AVakefield to Doncastcr without deviating an inch off bis own land. But the fabled purse of d Fortunatus would have failed to meet the demauds 1 of such a spendthrift as Richard Gargrave. AVhen he became sheriff, his extravagance was so wild that I almost think lie must have inherited a taint of madness. He would ride in almost regal splendor through the streets of AVakefield, flinging gold right and left, as largesse to the common people and as a token of his gratitude for so wise, peaceful and religious a king as England then enjoyed. In private life he seemed to have exhibited eccentricities similar to those of such sporting lunatics ; as Lord Barryiunrc. Jack Mytton and Mad AVinil-hani. Even now there linger in the neighborhood traditions of his wild midnight orgies, his insane wagers, his appalling losses at cards and on the turf. He is described in contemporary records as ; a notorious horse-courser, and a horse-courser was the term applied to a sportsman who ran his horses for great sums of money, not without a suspicion 1 of sharp practice. He bred and raced innumerable running horses of great speed, on which he wagered with recklessness, which soon brought him to ruin. Manor after manor, farm after farm of the ancestral estate were sold till of all that immense 1 demesne which lie had inherited, not a solitary acre was left him. "Roger Dodsworth, the Aorksbire antiquary, writing in 103-1, says: lie now lyveth in the Temple, Alsatica for sanctuary, having consumed his whole estate, . to the value of 3,500 pounds sterling per annum at least and hath not a penny to maintain himself, but what the purchasers of some part, of his lands in reversion after his mothers death allow him. in the hope he will survive his mother, who hath not consented to the sale. It must be remembered i that in those days ,500 a year was considered a good income for a country gentleman, and , a squire with ,500 a year was regarded as wealthy. Sir Richard Gargraves rental of 7,500 would therefore have been equivalent to at least , 100.000 a year in the present day. "Finally, the gentleman who owned one of the i largest and richest, estates in Yorkshire, and who had dazzled ths townsfolk of AVakefield and Don-caster by the magnificent pomp of his shrievalty, was reduced to be one of the attendants of a team of pack-horses. Sir Richard Gargrave seems to have i followed this occupation for a couple of years. It was the last phase of his checkered career. He was not destined to fall any lower, for one night, after lie had brought his pack-horses safely to London, he got gloriously drunk in an old Southwark hostelry, i and the next morning was found lying in the stable with his head pillowed on a pack-saddle ! sleeping his last sleep. So died the greatest horse , courser of the time. "These two plungers were at any rate honest sportsmen. They paid their debts and their wagers so long as they had a gold piece left. But there were others less honorable, defaulters of a type familiar to the bookmakers of today. There is, for example, something very suspicious about the following passage from a letter dated March 20, 1031: The Earl of Southampton, they say, hath lost a great deal of monie latelie at the Horse Races at Newmarket: hut true it is, he hath license to travel for three years, and is gone in all haste to France. A good many noblemen and gentlemen have since that time found it convenient to ! go in all haste to France after being hard hit , on the turf, and have omitted to settle up before their departure. "The eighteenth century is rich in betting and from royalty downwards. Although the actual occupants of the throne showed little or no interest in racing, the sport had the enthusiastic patronage of some lesser stars of royalty, among them the Prince of AVales and four royal dukes. Let us glance at one or two of these royal patrons of the turf and see what manner of sportsmen they wen-. "First and foremost, there was Frederick, Prince of Wales, eldest son of George II., and father of George 111. Scarcely anyone had a good word for Poor Fred in his lifetime. His father and mother detested him. The intensity of their hatred for their eldest son was extraordinary in its bitterness. His mother. Queen Caroline, writing to John, Lord Harvey, thus expressed her opinion of their eldest born: My dear lord. 1 will give it to von under niv own hand, if you are in any fear of my relapsing, that my dear first bom is the greatest ass and the greatest liar and the greatest canaille and the greatest beast in the whole world, and 1 hartily wish be was out of it. I think you will find it hard to match that as a mothers candid opinion of her first born. "But the Kings loathing for the Prince of AA ales was something even stronger and more horrible. What had Poor Fred done to deserve such hatred and loathing from his parents? AVell. he was not a nice voung man. according to our modern notions. He drank and gambled and swore and kept a harem of mistresses, and was a lug black guard, no doubt, but then in these respects he was no worse than dozens of others about the court, whose peccadilloes never provoked such a storm of execration as fell on Poor I red. lie morals than his younger was no worse in his brother. AVilliam Augustus. Duke of Cumberland, yet the latter was to the last a persona grata at ids fathers court. "But whatever else Frederick. Prince of ttales. mav have been, he certainly was a keen sportsman, thoroughlv Knglish in his sport ing tastes, lie loved hunting, racing, yachting, angling, cricket and hawing. He was a very heavy bettor, not only on the turf, but on every amusement he indulged in. cricketer though cricket lie was an enthusiastic was a vastly different game then from what it is now, and he and his brother, the Duke of .umber-land, who was equally keen on the game, were perpetuallv getting un matches against one another, each heavily backing his own eleven. But I red went further than this: lie had a bet on every run or notch, as it was then termed, that was made. Indeed, his death was said to have been caused bv a blow from a cricket ball while engaged in his favorite pastime. Now. to bo a patron of cricket in those days was considered by respectable persons to be a mark or the most depraved taste. It was in far worse repute as a pastime than even the prize ring, which iiroughton had just brought into fashion; and it was denounced in far stronger language than the Anti-Gambling League nowadays uses against Hhe turf. For example. I had the following tirade against the noble game in the Gentlemans Magazine of 1713: The diversion of cricket may be proper in holiday time and in the country, but upon days when men ought to be busy, and iii the neighborhood of a great city, it is not onlv improper, but mischievous in a high degree. It ilraws numbers of people from their employment to the ruin of their families. It brings crowds of apprentices anil servants whose time is not their own. It propagates a spirit of idleness at a juncture when, with the utmost industry, our debts, taxes and decay of trade will scarcely allow us to get bread. It is the most notorious breach of the laws, as it gives the most open encouragement to gaming, the advertisements most impudently reciting that great sums are laid, so that some people are so little ashamed of breaking the laws which they had a hand in making, that they give public notice of it. "No one blamed either the Prince of AVales or the Duke of Cumberland much for their patronage of the turf, or even of the ring, but all the moralists of the age were down upop them for patronizing the dreadfuly low, demoralizing game of cricket. There were even some who went so far as to regard Poor Freds death from the results of an accident at cricket as a judgment upon him for engaging in that disreputable and immoral pastime. On the race course the Prince of AVales was a plunger of the most pronounced type, and his losses at Newmarket and Ascot were sometimes appalling in their magnitude."
