1773 FIEST PERIOD 15 



text of a sermon) that the Jockey Club was founded 

 with any purpose of reforming and purifying either 

 the Turf or anything or anybody else, or of legislating 

 for anything or anybody in the sense in which such 

 terms are now understood, and that, in so far as the 

 Club does not give complete satisfaction in those 

 respects, it has derogated from its original position 

 and programme. For all that appears, it had no 

 particular programme, and its main purpose, so far 

 as one can see, was to have a good time, as the 

 Americans say, at Newmarket, by enabling its members 

 to hold their own against the rabble there, without 

 more intrusion than was absolutely unavoidable on 

 the part of the profane vulgar, and with as much 

 clearance of the chaotic confusion which had hitherto 

 prevailed as union, which is strength, could effect. 

 For this purpose it was necessary for the Club to 

 gain the ascendency, which its rank, wealth, and 

 influence soon enabled it to do. Another object, of 

 course, was to win one another's or anybody else's 

 money by acquiring, whether for a price or from 

 breeding, the best horses in creation. And a further 

 object, which cannot be too highly commended, was 

 apparently to knit together the horse-loving, horse- 

 breeding, and horse-racing nobility and gentry of 

 North and South ; for we find that, from the very first, 

 representatives of the Northern Turf were among the 

 members of the Southern Club. If we find also, as 

 we probably shall, that in pursuing their own pur- 



