54 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



siderably, the Eoom has about as many subscribers as 

 it can hold : a great increase on the number who ad- 

 journed there inAttnVs year, from their small try sting 

 place lower down the lane. Candidates are elected 

 by the committee of the Room ; they must find a 

 nominator and a seconder, and the names must be 

 up for at least a month. Above the fireplace at the 

 end of the room is a painting of Eclipse, from the 

 easel of the grandfather of the present Mr. Garrard 

 (whose oxydized silver race cups are not favourably 

 regarded by country race-goers, from the belief that 

 "they must be old uns"), representing the immortal 

 chesnut when he ruminated near Epsom in his proud 

 stud-days. A brood-mare and Young Eclipse are 

 also there, with two or three of the series of great 

 winners ; and a couple of engravings of Lord George 

 Bentinck, and race-lists and notices fastened up near 

 the fire-place, complete the tout ensemble of still life 

 within. The left side- windows open out on to the 

 terrace green, where the Ring, weather permitting, 

 stand or saunter about on field days ; and masters of 

 hounds, &c., earlier in the morning, try the paces of a 

 hack they may have been eyeing in some of the 120 

 stalls in the adjacent yard ; but on off days it is 

 more associated in our minds with a walnut-tree, an 

 Alderney cow, and a pail. Such are the leading fea- 

 tures of the great betting mart, whose quotations are 

 to racing men what those of Mark Lane are to the 

 farmer, Lloyd^s to the insurer, the Stock Exchange 

 to the broker, or Greenwich Time to the horologist. 



The whole system of betting has undergone a com- 

 plete change in the last sixty years. Betting between 

 one and the field was the fashion which Turf specu- 

 lation assumed in the days of powder and periwigs, and 

 Ogden (the only betting man who was ever admitted 

 to the Club at Newmarket), Davis, Holland, Dear- 

 den, Kettle, Bickham, and Watts, ruled on the Turf 

 'Change. With Jem Bland, Jerry Cloves, Myers (an 



