320 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1835- 



though there can be little doubt about the soundness 

 of the Bule. Between 1840 and 1846, too, the Club 

 (chiefly through the Duke of Kichmond, and of Lord 

 Palmerston, who was consequently elected a member 

 of the Club) procured the repeal of an obnoxious Act 

 of Parliament (13th year of George II.) as to running 

 two horses in a race (for a Plate) and obtained the 

 passage of the Gaming Acts Discontinuance Bill, 

 whereby qui tarn actions were prevented, and scoun- 

 drels who raked up an obsolete statute for purposes 

 of black-mail were checkmated. 



In 1852 the Jockey Club publicly, by decreeing 

 the weights to be carried, gave its sanction to a race 

 in which two-year-olds were to run three miles at New- 

 market ; but, it should be remembered, in the Hough- 

 ton week, when they would be ' rising three ' very 

 rapidly, though, even so, it was a ' heavy order ' well 

 discharged in 1870 or thereabouts. But in 1852, the 

 Jockey Club countenanced the racing of yearlings, as 

 we have seen. That, in 1855, the Club should have 

 discontinued the Second Spring Meeting is the more 

 noticeable because, in 1890, when the Meeting had been 

 renewed (1870-71), a Second July was added (some 

 days, however, being at the same time docked from 

 other meetings). That in 1856 a Eule was passed 

 * that if either party in a case which is heard before 

 the Stewards of the Jockey Club, desires to have a 

 short-hand writer engaged to take down the evidence, 

 the Stewards may, if they think proper, engage a 



