248 A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH TURF. 



" warning-off " by winning an action for trespass against the man to whose presence 

 they objected in the case of the Duke of Portland v. Hawkins. 



The earliest public mention of the new association is to be found in Mr. John 

 Pond's " Sporting Kalendar," which announces, " A Contribution Free Plate, by 

 horses the property of the noblemen and gentlemen belonging to the Jockey Club," 

 for the ist of April, 1752, an announcement which evidently pre-supposes the famili- 

 arity of the organisation to Mr. Pond's readers ; and by the May Meeting of 1753 

 we find no less than two " Jockey Club Plates," not only announced, but regularly run 

 for, which were reproduced at Newmarket at the Second Spring Meeting for many 

 years. But it is not alone by a mere record of the racing of its members that the 

 value of the Club in these early years can be properly appreciated. The list of 

 members which these races reveal between 1753 and 1773, the year when Messrs. 

 Weatherby's first Calendar was published, is a strong indication that the objects they 

 suggested as probable for its founders were being rapidly attained. These objects 

 were, it may be suspected, rather negative than positive in their nature. They aimed 

 at exclusion rather than reformation, at amusement with safety rather than at 

 authoritative legislation. It was convenient to be able to bet with a considerable 

 number of people, all of whom were in a recognised position, and able to pay up 

 when necessary. It must not be imagined fora moment that the Jockey Club, at any 

 period of its career, posed as a Censor Morum in the matter of betting. Indeed for 

 almost a hundred years the questions arising out of wagers were those which chiefly 

 concerned it, and the announcement of 1842 (that " the Jockey Club, and the Stewards 

 thereof, will henceforth take no cognisance of any dispute or claims in respect of 

 bets ") is far from implying that the Club ignore bets, for it was necessitated by the 

 natural desire of members to escape the unpleasantness of constant adjudication in 

 such matters, or at least only to proceed against defaulters after the painful duty of 

 initiating inquiries had been undertaken by the Committees of Tattersall's and the 

 Subscription Rooms at Newmarket. It would have been highly absurd of the 

 original Club to take any measures of this kind, inasmuch as they began without any 

 power to enforce their authority whatever, and themselves provided nine-tenths of 

 the wagers taken and offered on the course. But far larger objects than these soon 

 appeared as the inevitable corollary of this association of men of wealth and distinc- 

 tion. Perhaps the greatest was that bond of union now made possible, with the 

 breeding of bloodstock as its strongest link, between the racing men of the North 

 and of the South ; and the second was like unto it. For the proceedings of a rich 



