GEORGE IV. AND WILLIAM IV. 119 



well as the Goodwood Stakes (in the form which 

 has become familiar). 



Then, too, it was that the curious plague 

 (whether due to an attempt at ' nobbling ' or not) 

 occurred at the Petworth Stud Farm (Lord Egre- 

 mont's) in 1825, when fourteen blood-mares and 

 cart-mares, and all the she-asses, produced dead 

 or death-struck foals ; and that, thanks (or the 

 contrary) to Messrs. Tattersall's subscription 

 rooms, opened in 18 18 (and shifted to a larger 

 building in 1842, as 'business' increased), the 

 ' ring-worm ' spread from Messrs. Greaves and 

 'Gendeman' Ogden, Mr. (ex-ostler) Jerry Cloves 

 and his merry men, to some two or three hundred 

 more of like kidney (such as Crockford, the 

 Blands — acquainted with but one of the three 

 ' R's — Ridsdale, Mat Milton, Holliday, Gully, 

 Justice, 'Crutch' Robinson, 'Short Odds' Richards, 

 and company), though even then, and for many 

 years afterwards, their number was to that of our 

 day (when highly respectable graduates of the 

 universities are said to enter the ' profession,' as 

 they would go to the Bar) no more than a drop 

 to the ocean, to adopt a slight exaggeration. 



It was in the same reign that there flourished 



