FOURTH PERIOD : VICTORIA 233 



But as long as the practice endures of keeping a 

 sound lawyer upon its books, as Messrs, Moses 

 and Sons and other great firms keep or used to 

 keep a poet, the club will always have the advice 

 of a Baron Martin, or a Justice Hawkins, or some 

 other legal luminary to steer it clear of legislative 

 rocks. 



Of course, some 'bookies,' like some jockeys 

 (such as the Chifneys, or Chiffneys — Sam the 

 father, and Will and Sam the sons), however 

 successful they may be, offer examples of the 

 catastrophe which sometimes occurs to the 

 beggar on horseback, and, after rolling in gold 

 and affluence for some years, come to bankruptcy 

 and misery ; but her Majesty's reign has pre- 

 sented many cases of fortunes, from moderate to 

 large, made chiefly by the ' laying of odds,' with 

 a ' coup ' now and then in the department of 

 ' backing.' Mr. Gully, for instance, is said to 

 have left behind him between ^240,000 and 

 ;^2 50,000, though his former 'friend and pardner,' 

 Mr. Ridsdale, died with no more than three- 

 halfpence in his pocket, which probably even 

 the good bishop of whom we have all read would 



