FOURTH PERIOD : VICTORIA 175 



power which he had acquired at Goodwood, where 

 he was allowed by the Duke of Richmond to be- 

 come ' everybody,' to nearly all other race-courses, 

 and exercised it partly, no doubt, in restraint of evil- 

 doing, but partly, one would say, in the spirit of a 

 Whiteley, v^hose ' business ' happened to be horse- 

 racing and betting thereupon, and who, in the 

 pursuit of his ow^n interests, did all he could to 

 * push ' the said ' business ' by making it popular, 

 studying to attract the public by all sorts of spec- 

 tacular improvements and inventions. 



Admiral Rous, however, if he was less attentive 

 to the requirements of the public, set by far the 

 better example. He never betted beyond the 

 moderate amount which could not cripple him, 

 and which testified that his object was merely to 

 give an emphatic proof of his confidence in his 

 own judgment, and not to ' make a haul '; but 

 Lord George was as keen after the ' shekels ' as 

 if he had been a denizen of Houndsditch, betted 

 sums which frightened and incensed his excellent 

 father and which might very well have brought 

 him to ruin, preached the mischievous doctrine 

 that a man was to pay for his horse-racing out of 

 the pockets of the public by gambling, taught 



