FIRST PERIOD: CHARLES II. TO GEORGE II. 17 



^10 from any person or persons at one time (and 

 by 18 Geo., c. 34, the liability was extended to 

 the winning of ^20 within twenty-four hours). 

 The statute was held to apply to horse-racing, so 

 that a horse-race {cxceptis excipiendis, such as 

 Royal Plates, no doubt) for a prize of over £iq 

 was held to be illegal. The records of horse- 

 racing show that the statute either did not apply 

 to Matches and Plates at Newmarket and Plates 

 and Cups at York and elsewhere, or was dis- 

 regarded and unenforced ; but it appears, by 

 common consent and published testimony, to 

 have had the effect, as might have been exjoected, 

 of doing more harm than good, so far as the 

 breed of horses was concerned, and of converting 

 what had hitherto, from the value of the animals 

 employed, been ' the sport of kings ' into a game 

 of speculation for men of straw, who cared for 

 nothing but twopenny-halfpenny gambling with 

 twopenny-halfpenny instruments on four, or gene- 

 rally three, legs. In fact, as a legal publication 

 puts the matter : ' A large number of races 

 [unworthy of notice in the permanent records] 

 were started for small prizes under ^10, so as not 

 to infringe the Act, a practice which tended to 



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