1773 FIRST PERIOD : CONCLUDED 153 



case with some individual members, such as Mr. 

 ' Jockey ' Vernon) from which to ' warn off ' anybody 

 who incurred its displeasure. Accordingly, in or about 

 the year 1752, it seems that the members of the Club 

 seceded (save for purposes of dining) from the Red 

 Lion (the hostelry at which it appears to have been 

 customary for the ' quality ' to assemble, as well as 

 probably for the most affluent and most masterful, 

 but by no means the least offensive, of the ' black- 

 legs '), and acquired for themselves, on a lease for fifty 

 years, from a certain Mr. Erratt (a name which occurs 

 pretty frequently in the records of that time as the 

 patronymic of a jockey, a groom, or other person pro- 

 fessionally engaged in horse-racing and horse-keeping) 

 a plot of ground whereon they caused a tenement to 

 be built for their accommodation. This tenement, 

 or a certain portion of it, was called the Coffee-room ; 

 and, before half of the said fifty years had expired, 

 the ground lease was transferred to Mr. ' Jockey ' 

 Vernon, whose tenants, as has been observed already, 

 such members of the Club as chose to become share- 

 holders or subscribers, or whatever they were called, 

 became. This tenement, at any rate, was adopted as 

 the headquarters of the Club. There they transacted 

 what business there was to do ; and there they spent 

 their evenings, which, as ' Bozzy ' would lead us to 

 understand from his ' Cub at Newmarket,' were not 

 passed in that singing of anthems to which Sir John 

 Falstaff attributed his hoarseness. Nor, after the 



