262 A MIRROR OF THE TURF. 



hundred to be going on with, and was never 

 the man to say he had done it. Many other 

 good actions of a similar kind might, were the 

 details known, be placed to the credit side of 

 Crockford's account. 



There is no doubt that Crockford did many 

 kind acts in his day which never could be 

 chronicled, because none but he knew of them. 

 When a boy I was taken once or twice to see 

 " Crockford's," and on many occasions I heard 

 of his doings. He had one virtue — " for days 

 and days," I was told, " he never drank liquor 

 stronger than water." Abstinence from intoxi- 

 cants was one of the aids by which he made 

 the half-million with which at one time he might 

 have retired into private life, and been free of 

 gambling evermore. 



There is, I think, as much gambling of all 

 kinds to-day as there was during the days of 

 the great hell in St. James's Street. There is 

 this difference, however : we hear less about it, 

 even though we have ten times the number 

 of newspapers telling us of our sins. To-day 

 gambling goes on everywhere. There may be 

 no hells in London at the present time to 

 compare in splendour and luxury with that kept 

 by William Crockford, but there is hardly a 

 club in the mighty town in which speculation 

 of some kind is not constantly carried on. As 

 for betting on horse-racing, ten times more 

 money, much of it, however, in small amounts, 

 now changes hands over a big race than changed 

 hands sixty years since. 



Summing up the situation as between then 

 and now, the case may be thus stated : in the days 



