CHAPTERS FROM TURF HISTORY 



was free of all cant and illusion and to a wide 

 sympathy with popular tastes and amusements. 

 Possessing a keen sense of minute observation and 

 a striking amplitude of comprehension, he was 

 able without undue presumption to enter the 

 province of the sportsman and to describe in 

 brilliant terms all the features of a classic encounter 

 on the race-course and all the emotions which it 

 excites. 



Sybil, a work of grave purpose, and, according 

 to an eminent critic, the sincerest of all Disraeli's 

 novels, seems to have been written soon after 

 the publication of Coningshy, and made its ap- 

 pearance in May 1845. The first chapter opens 

 with a really brilliant sketch of Crockford's on 

 the eve of the Derby of 1837. Disraeli did not 

 rely on his imagination for his description of the 

 golden saloons of this famous and sumptuous 

 gaming-house in St. James's Street. He had been 

 elected a member of it in 1840 — the year that 

 " Old Crocky," the proprietor, had retired from 

 his hazard bank and had acquired a residence 

 in Carlton House Terrace and a racing stud of 

 some importance.^ It was at Crockford's that 



' Crockford started in life as a fishmonger in a shop next door 

 to Temple Bar Without, which he quitted for play in St. James's. 

 He began by taking Waller's old club-house, where he set up 

 a hazard bank and won a great deal of money. Crockford 

 then removed to St. James's Street, had a good year, and built 

 in 1827 the club-house which bore his name, and of which the 

 decorations are said to have cost ;^g4,ooo. Ude was engaged as 

 maitre d'hdtel, and Crockford's was high fashion. There were 

 cards, but the main business was the hazard bank at which the 

 proprietor took his nightly stand, prepared for all comers. He 

 retired in 1840, much as an Indian chief retires from a fine hunting 

 country where there is not game enough left for his tribe. He 

 then went in heavily for racing, but a Turf conspiracy killed him. 



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