154 THE JOCKEY CLUB 1750- 



brief biographical notices which have been given of 

 the earliest members, will it seem likely that they 

 commenced each day's proceedings with family 

 prayer, and then turned their attention entirely to 

 legislating for the Turf and reforming it, after the 

 fashion most gratuitously ascribed to them by certahi 

 writers about the Turf and its abuses. Take the 

 evidence of Lady Sarah Bunbury upon the point, who 

 thus writes to Selwyn in 1767 : ' A Mr. Brereton (a 

 sad vulgar) betted at a table where Mr. Meynell, the 

 Duke of Northumberland, and Lord Ossory were play- 

 ing cards in the morning at the Coffee-house ; he lost, 

 and accused Mr. Meynell and Mr. Vernon (who had 

 just come in) of having cheated the Duke of North- 

 umberland, and [accused] Lord Ossory, &c, of being 

 cheats in general.' An additional side-light may be 

 thrown upon the ordinary occupations of the members 

 by referring to the antics (already mentioned) of the 

 ' Cripplegate ' Earl of Barrymore, and to what is said 

 to have taken place at the Coffee-room some few 

 years later, when the noted CoL George Hanger (who 

 will be encountered hereafter), a member of the 

 Jockey Club and a ' bruiser ' of renown, was worsted 

 in a ' turn-up,' as the pugilists say, by a more 

 scientific but less aristocratic brother-member and 

 brother-bruiser, Mr. T. Bullock. Not that there is 

 any intention here of insinuating that the members of 

 the Jockey Club had not a perfect right to play cards, 

 even in the morning, and to bet and to box, if they 



