76 LORD GEORGE BENTINCK 



Now, most people would think that an authoritative 

 decision of this kind would have been final. But this 

 was not the result with the prime mover in this matter. 

 The namer of Deception gave notice to the stake-holder 

 not to pay over the stakes, and they were withheld ; 

 and the question was brought into a court of law and- 

 tried at the Liverpool Assizes in August, when a verdict 

 was found for Mr. Eidsdale, the stakes in the meantime 

 having been paid into the Court of Exchequer. The 

 actual question in dispute, I should perhaps add, was 

 whether Bloomsbury should not have been described as 

 ' by Tramp or Mulatto' 



With Lord George himself, the matter was one of 

 motive. What, I may ask, induced him to hurl defiance 

 at the stewards, and by impugning their decision and 

 trying to set it aside in a court of law, bring contempt 

 upon the whole body of the Jockey Club ? Like another 

 amiable character, Lord George, I am afraid, ' was 

 nothing if not critical,' and like him also ofttimes ' his 

 jealousies found faults that were not.' In this case no 

 roguery was complained of, nor sinister motive imputed 

 to anyone. What then, it may be inquired, WPS the 

 aim of the objection ? Surely we shall not presume to 

 think, as some uncharitable persons have suggested, 

 that Lord George was a heavy loser on the horse that 

 won, and would have gained a large sum if only he 

 could have, rightly or wrongly, got the race given to 

 his friend's mare. In this view of it, the stake was a 

 good one, and worth playing for, though he missed it. 

 Eather is it not more charitable to attribute the inter- 

 ference to an innate uncontrollable desire to meddle 

 with other people's affairs, and not always, as we may 

 complacently conclude, for the good of the turf ? 



But I must not forget that Lord George was the 



