238 HOKSE-RACING IN FRANCE 



knew that French widows (whose husbands, perhaps, 

 liad been 'connected with tlie Turf) were ripe for 

 swindling in the matter of bets upon horse races, and 

 the lady evidently had some notion (whencesover de- 

 rived) that a profit was to be reahsed by judiciously 

 ' throwing a commission into the market,' as the phrase 

 is ; and these two facts entitle the case of Madame de 

 Goncourt to prominent mention in a history of horse- 

 racing in France. It would be tedious, however, to 

 enter into details : they may be found by anybody who 

 cares to look for them in the newspapers of 1876-77, 

 commencing with the autumn of the former year. It 

 will be enough to remark here that Madame de Gon- 

 court, getting no return for or of her money, and sus- 

 pecting (most justly) that she was being swindled, had 

 recourse to the law. The upshot was the ' Great Turf 

 Fraud ' case, which led to the conviction of the notorious 

 Mr. Benson (the accomplished swindler, of good birth 

 and education, who was much esteemed in the Isle of 

 Wight) and of his accomplices. The trial lasted twelve 

 days : Mr. Benson was sentenced to fifteen years' penal 

 servitude, Messrs. William and Frederick Kerr (or 

 Kurr) and Mr. Charles Bale to ten years', and Mr. 

 Edwin Murray to eighteen months' hard labour. Then 

 did Mr. Benson, in the hope of getting his sentence 

 mitio-ated, volunteer some information which led to the 

 celebrated trial of the detectives Messrs. Meiklejohn, 

 Druscovitch, Palmer, and Clarke, and of the useful 

 solicitor Mr. Edward Froggatt, and to a revelation 

 which startled the English community. 



To these memorable events of the year 1876 may 

 be added the double success of Rosebery in the Cesare- 

 witch and Cambridgeshire, which had never before been 

 won by the same horse, either in the same year or in 



