1773 FIKST PERIOD : CONCLUDED 155 



pleased, whether in the morning or in the evening ; 

 but the little sketch of such proceedings has been 

 proffered for the benefit of those who insist upon 

 preaching as if the main intention of the Club at its 

 foundation had been professedly a severe, business- 

 like reform of the Turf, its racing and its morals. 

 The absurdity of the idea will appear at once from the 

 reflection that the Club, having at first no property 

 from which to ' warn off ' anybody, and no command 

 over the * Calendars/ so as to keep out of them the 

 programmes and advertisements of disobedient race 

 committees or individuals, had absolutely no means 

 of asserting its power against recalcitrants. True, 

 about nine-tenths or more of the horses which ran at 

 Newmarket belonged to members of the Club, who 

 would be subject to laws made by it or to * agreements ' 

 made one with another ; but as regards the remain- 

 ing tenth and the whole racing world outside New- 

 market, the Club had only very indirect means of 

 exercising influence, by hoping that its example would 

 be followed by the peers of its members, by threaten- 

 ing persons of low degree with disqualification for 

 employment by members of the Club, and by appeal- 

 ing to the general sense of the racing community. 



Let us now see how the new Club began to work 

 its way towards its ultimate position of paramount 

 authority, from 1753 to 1773. 



Be it premised that the only laws and regulations 

 to which horse-racing was subject at the advent of the 



