ROYALTY ON THE TURF. 55 



bad such an account that Cape Breton was ceded to thein in lieu of 

 it by the Government of the day, and his taste in their line may be 

 judged of by the fact that his rifie, which brought 50 guineas, hadi 

 a gold pan and touch-hole. 



The Dake of Clarence, too, afterwards William IV., kept race- 

 horses, but that he had not much knowledge of the sport may be 

 gathered from the following characteristic anecdote of him. When 

 his trainer asked him what he should send down to run at Ascot, 

 our sailor King replied: "Why the whole squad, first-rates and 

 gunboats ; some of them, T suppose, must win." From that time 

 until the present Prince of Wales began his modest racing career, 

 we have seen nothing of Royalty on the turf. 



ME. JOHN MYTTON. 



AMONG the many strange and eccentric characters that from 

 time to time have, by their whimsical freaks, created a 

 sensation in the sporting world, there has been none more remark- 

 able and unique than the extraordinary man popularly spoken of 

 as " Jack Mytton," whose name is still a household word at New- 

 market and Malton, and for ever associated with the extinct glories 

 of "Limmer's." The incidents of his romantic and eventful life have 

 been narrated with tolerable fidelity but questionable taste by his 

 friend, C. J. Apperley (the famous " Nimrod "), whose attempt to 

 ])alliate the follies and extenuate the feults of the mad squire of 

 Halston has not been altogether crowned with success — there being 

 a mawkish and canting tone about the book which disgusted all 

 manly sportsmen. But enough of that, let us proceed to give brie tly 

 a few of the more notable incidents in the life of one, who, with all 

 his faults, did much to popularise the national sport of horse-racing. 



John Mytton was born on the 30th of September, 1796, at the 

 faniily seat of Halston, in Shropshire, three miles from Oswestry, and 

 was left fatherless at two years of age. His mother spoiled him, 

 and by the time he was ten years of age the young heir was what is 

 called a regular pickle. He was expelled from Westminster and 

 Harrow in succession. At the former school he spent £'800 a-year, 

 exactly double his allowance, and wrote, when he was only fourteen 

 years of age, to Lord Eldon, the then Lord Chancellor, requesting an 

 increase of income, as he was going to be married. The Lord Chan- 

 cellor replied — ■" Sir, if you cannot live on your income you may 

 starve, and if you marry I will commit you to prison." At the age 

 of nineteen he entered, as a cornet, the 7th Hussars, and joined that 

 regiment in France with the army of occupation. But as there was 

 no more fighting. Cornet Mytton was at leisure to enter into all 

 kinds of youthful mischief. One of his feats was borrowing i'3,000 of 

 a hanker at St. Omer one day and losing half of it at an E. 0, table 



