CONCLUSION 345 



not as yet form a distinctly recognised body, with 

 enclosures set apart for them at race-meetings all 

 over the country, with a sort of ' Exchange ' at Hyde 

 Park Corner or Knightsbridge, with Clubs called after 

 the reigning sovereign, and that sovereign's consort, 

 with clerks and all the paraphernalia of a legitimate 

 business, with a committee composed of nobles and 

 gentles (mostly members of the Jockey Club), with 

 town councillors and churchwardens (it is said) 

 among their most conspicuous brethren, with the 

 public press to aid and abet them, and with their mystic 

 appellation of ' the Eing.' Besides, it was not until 

 the Jockey Club had been in existence for some years 

 that O'Kelly and England and their compeers were 

 in full force. So that, when the Jockey Club first 

 appeared upon the scene, their members may be truly 

 said to have conducted their betting much in the same 

 way in which it was conducted when, as the records 

 relate of the famous match between Old Merlin and 

 Mr. Tregonwell Frampton's unnamed horse, ' the 

 South-country gentlemen observed to those of the 

 North, that " they would bet them gold whilst gold 

 they had, and then they might sell then land." ' It 

 is true that this reckless betting resulted in the ruin 

 of ' several gentlemen,' and that Parliament had to 

 take the matter up ; but there was an absence of the 

 sordid appearance which is characteristic of the 

 modern system, when august personages whose 

 1 ancestors came over with the Conqueio: ' try (gene- 



