MK. (tP:OKGE I'AYNE. 



113 



ME. GEORGE PAYNE. 



FIVE years ago there was probably no man on the turf so widely 

 known or so universally popular as ]\Ir. George Payne. He 

 was one of the few remaining links that bound the present gene- 

 ration to the days of the Earl of Derby, Lord (jreorge Bentinek, 

 Mr. Greville, Lords Strathmore, Eglinton, and Zetland, the Earls 

 of Jersey and Egremont, and the Duke of Bedford. For upwards 

 of tifty years he had been an habitue of every racecourse in 

 England, and not even Admiral Rous was better known by sight 

 to the public attending the meetings than the gentleman in the 

 drab trousers, black frock coat, and checked gingham neckerchief — 



MR. GEORGE PAYNE. 



" the Payne tartan " — who always had a few bets on every race, how- 

 ever small. Born of good old Northamptonshire stock, in the year 

 1804, George Payne was left an orphan at the early age of six years. 

 There is little need now to slur over or conceal the story, for all 

 affected by it have long since passed away. The elder Mr. George 

 Payne fell in a duel, shot by the hand of ]\Ir. Clarke, whose sister Payne 

 had seduced. In those evil days of the early Regency such crimes 

 seemed to be a part of the education of a man of fashion, and all 

 that was required of the pei"petrator was that he should be prepared 

 to brave the consequences, a fact which may, perhaps, serve to remind 

 some of the savage denouncers of modern vices that we are, after all, 

 not much worse than our grandfathers. The elder Payne quitted 



