GEORGE IV. AND WILLIAM IV. 131 



lately-passed Reform Bill (June 7, 1832), when 

 the King, having stepped into the balcony of the 

 grand stand to show himself, was promptly hit in 

 the eye (like Mr. Gladstone at another place 

 during the ' Home Rule ' General Election of 

 1892) or on the forehead, whether with a ginger- 

 bread nut or a stone, by an apparently disloyal 

 subject. 



It was in the reign of the Sailor King (though 

 not he, but his brother, was responsible for the 

 innovation), that ' common fellers ' were pro- 

 hibited, it is said, for awhile from running for the 

 Ascot Cup, which trophy was reserved for horses 

 belonging to members of the Jockey Club, 

 Brooks's, and White's, so that the great Priam, 

 the property of the brothers William and Samuel 

 Chifney, jun., when he was entered for the Ascot 

 Cup of 1 83 1, was only nominated by those astute 

 owners partly as a mild protest and partly as an 

 enhancing advertisement whereby Lord Chester- 

 field may have been induced to give 3,000 guineas 

 (a small price enough for such a ' crack/ as prices 

 are now) for him, though, in the result, the horse 

 never completed his glories by winning the great 

 Ascot event, and indeed never ran for it. 



