THE EARLS OF DERBY. 37 



orator and statesman, only second, if second, to Peel in the House of 

 Commons, and on whom the destiny of the country perhaps depends? 

 There he was, as if he had no thoughts but for the turf, full of the 

 horses, interest in the lottery, eager, blunt, noisy, good humoured, 

 has meditans nugas et totus in illis ; at night equally devoted to 

 the play, as if his fortune depended on it. Thus can a man relax 

 whose existence is devoted to great objects and serious thoughts." 

 And again, a few months later, under date November 13th, 1833, 

 Grrevalle writes : — " Dined yestei'day with Stanley, who gave me a 

 commission to bet a hundred for him on Bentley against Berbastes 

 for the Derby, and talked of racing after dinner with as much zest as 

 if he was on the turf. Who (to see him and hear him thus) would 

 take him for the greatest orator and statesman of the day ? " When 

 the earl's connection with John Scott commenced, the number of 

 horses he owned was comparatively small, and during the twenty-one 

 years his stud was under Scott's care the number varied considerably 

 — the total for the whole period amounting to 243, of which 54 were 

 winners ; the aggregate amount of their winnings being £94,003. 

 This sum of money, extending over twenty-one years, would give an 

 average in round numbers of £4,476 per annum on the credit side of 

 Lord Derby's racing-book. The number of horses would average some- 

 thing more than eleven in each year, and the average cost of each 

 horse would be about £407 in Mr. Scott's hands. So that Lord 

 Derby, racing purely for his own pleasure and for the propagation of 

 first-class stock, at any rate was not a loser in the long run. Therfe 

 have been very few owners of horses who could show such a result. 

 At first Lord Derby was by no means successful, but he was not to 

 be diverted from his purpose ; he really loved his horses, and felt 

 much pleasure in their success, and so his stud grew by degrees in 

 numbers as well as in merit. His best years, so far as winnings 

 were concerned, were 1853 and 1854, and he had the largest stud 

 between 1847 and 1858. It was only natural that a high-spirited 

 honourable gentleman, breeding horses on the most disinterested 

 principles, should be disgusted at the rise of a class of turfmen with 

 whom we are unfortunately too familiar nowadays, who keep horses 

 simply as instruments of gambling, and this brought from him an in- 

 dignant appeal to the Jockey Club, which was published in the form 

 of a letter to the Times on the 11th of July, 1857. A scandalous 

 case had just come before the law courts, in which a Mr. James Adkins, 

 the keeper of a gambling house known as the Berkeley Club, in 

 Albemarle Street, Piccadilly, was sued by a Mr. John Sidebottom, a 

 wealthy but foolish young Manchester cotton-spinner, for £6,525, which 

 the plaintiff had lost at the aforesaid gambling house. If the money 

 had been lost fairly the plaintiff said he would never have sought to 

 recover it, but after he had lost nearly £25,000 it came to his know- 

 ledge that the money had been won from him by cheating and false 

 play. He learned that loaded dice had been used, and while he, a 

 young man, was primed with wine his money was won from him by 



