86 HORSE-RACING IN ENGLAND 



petitive owners of horses among themselves, and 

 the public among themselves. 



There had afterwards sprung up the ' legs ' and 

 the ' bettors round,' who formed, In the days when 

 the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., was 

 in his heyday, the fraternity which would assemble 

 on the Steyne at Brighton, and await the coming 

 of the ' plungers,' headed by Lord Foley and 

 Colonel Mellish, of lavish memory, when a cer- 

 tain Jerry Cloves, as pontifex tiuxximus, would 

 address the Colonel in the seductive words : 

 ' Now, Mr. Mellish, will you light the candle 

 and set us a-going i*' 



But, though an eye-witness describes the 

 'legs' and bettors as 'shoals,' Mr. Cloves and 

 his brethren were but a handful compared with 

 the ' bookmakers ' of to-day, who can scarcely be 

 said to have had a corporate existence before the 

 year 1818, when there were built at Tattersalls' 

 the Subscription Rooms, which have since been 

 removed from Hyde Park Corner to another 

 convenient site at Albert Gate, Knightsbridge. 



The singularity of Tattersalls' is that it 

 was established by a family one of the heads 



