CHAPTERS FROM TURF HISTORY 



request. The reasons he gave for not complying 

 with it were considered at the time to be weak 

 and unconvincing, but they were upheld by the 

 Judge, who asserted the traditional privilege of 

 learned counsel to speak according to his instruc- 

 tions. The next morning The Times, in the best 

 style of leading-article criticism, thundered against 

 Cockbum's conduct, and derided the wide extent of 

 the privilege of the Bar which had been claimed. 

 The article accused Cockburn of culpable care- 

 lessness in making the charges, uncompensated 

 as they were by any adequate amende in the sequel 

 of the proceedings. Two or three days later 

 Cockburn made a statement in court withdrawing 

 the imputations on Bentinck's character. ^ 



The speedy action of his friends must, however, 

 have been some solace to Bentinck's wounded 

 feelings. On the evening after the trial a meeting 

 was called at which the following resolution was 

 passed: "That the noblemen and gentlemen of 

 the Jockey Club and several proprietors of race- 

 horses interested in the honour and prosperity of 

 the Turf intend to present Lord George Bentinck 

 with a piece of plate to mark their sense of the 

 immense service he has rendered to the racing 

 community by detecting and defeating the 



» See the Greville Memoirs, vol. v. p. 256. Although Greville 

 and Bentinck were not on speaking terms at the time, the former 

 pays a high tribute to the energy and ability displayed by his 

 cousin in exposing the fraud. Greville, who was in court on both 

 days, writes that the Running Rein parties had no idea that Colonel 

 Peel's friends had got up their case so perfectly, and also that the 

 trial was over before it was half developed in evidence. There is 

 authority for saying that the attorney in the case declared of 

 Bentinck that there was " no sum he would not give to secure the 

 professional assistance of such a coadjutor." 



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