LORD GEORGE BENTINCK AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE MODERN TURF. 455 



strongest men of his time. But he did not get on well with his friends. He horse- 

 whipped Ridsdale, and there was a regular view-halloa in court when the verdict for 

 damages against him was proclaimed. Squire Osbaldeston had to put a bullet 

 through his hat, too, to teach him manners, a lesson from which even the great Lord 

 George himself was not exempt. His confederacy with Harry Hill brought about 

 the downfall of Danebury, for the time. His taciturnity on a racecourse was only 



Hon. E. Petre's "Matilda" (1824) by " Comus." 



equalled by his judicious silence as a member of Parliament, where his name to this 

 day is preserved in the honourable position of the First Commoner of England. 



To see the betting rooms at Doncaster in such a year as Margrave's St. 

 Leger was to realise that some reforms were necessary ; Crockforcl disputing with 

 Jemmy Bland in choicest Billingsgate ; Ord shouting bibulous disapproval from the 

 top of a table ; Gully waiting with threatening brows to see what would happen next ; 

 the white, sardonic countenance of the old Duke of Cleveland watching the whole 

 uproar. But the doings of Messrs. Gully, Hill, Pedley, Arnold, and Turner, the 

 members of what was known as the Danebury Confederacy, must not yet concern us. 



