40 NEWMARKET EARLY IN THE CENTURY. 



bed, there is a c delve ' in it into which I can put my 

 thumb." This evidence led to Dawson's conviction 

 and public execution at Cambridge, in presence of 

 from twelve to fifteen thousand persons. 



If I am censured by some impatient readers for 

 entering at this length into a transaction with 

 which many are familiar, I can but plead that the 

 details given are generally inaccurate, and that 

 my father was intimately connected with the dis- 

 covery of this dastardly crime, and was never 

 tired, in my youth, of talking about it. I remem- 

 ber that it was his habit to impress upon me most 

 forcibly, what I afterwards learned from my own 

 experience, that it was impossible to exercise too 

 much vigilance as to the water supplied to horses 

 away from home. This caution was not forgotten 

 by me when I had Surplice at Epsom, just before 

 the Derby of 1848. 



I remarked at the beginning of this chapter- 

 that it would have been enough for me to state 

 that I was the son of a trainer, and born at New- 

 market, in explanation of the fact that I myself 

 followed my father's profession. This, however, 

 was not my father's desire. He would infinitely 

 have preferred that I should have studied chem- 

 istry at the laboratory of a relative of his and 

 mine, at Stratford, in Essex. The firm in ques- 

 tion was that of Messrs Howard, Gibson, & Kent. 

 I was placed under their care for a short time ; 

 but soon after, my father became a widower, and 



