OTHER SEATS OF HORSE-RACING. 53 



the last twenty years on each succeeding anni- 

 versary of the race. Nor is the work of the 

 *' Economist/' who translated the silks and satins 

 of the toilettes of " England's fairest daughters " 

 into vulgar money's worth, to be ignored. His 

 estimate that the dresses and ** other belongings " 

 of the four hundred and fifty most fashionable 

 women, from their dainty morocco shoes and silken 

 sandals, up to the wondrous head fabrics which 

 •crowned the high-born, delicate ladies seen at the 

 two great fashionable meetings of the season, 

 would cost at the least ^200 for each person, is, 

 perhaps, even too moderate ; the total cost of the 

 toilettes of that army of the fair would, perhaps, 

 -on the average of the Goodwood season, be full a 

 ^100,000. Was it not, for instance, recorded by 

 the public press in a scandal case, that the Ascot 

 and Goodwood trousseau of one fair but frail dame, 

 of twelve dresses and the accordant " other things" 

 of shoes, fans, gloves, lace and lingerie, had been 

 charged ^1,128.'^ The "Economist's" argument 

 is that horse-racing, despite its evils, must be 

 tolerated for the good it does to trade, for the 

 crowds it sends over the railways, for the gospel of 

 eating, drinking, and dressing which it so elo- 

 quently preaches, all employing tradespeople, and, 

 consequently, circulating money. 



Coming to the facts connected with the insti- 

 tution of the Goodwood Meeting, it has to be 

 stated on the authority of various historians, that 

 the meeting was founded in a sportive moment 

 by some officers of the Sussex Militia, in con- 

 junction with the members of a local hunt club. 

 The races so organised first took place in the 

 ■course of the month of April, 1802, a good be- 



