38 SPORTING STORIES 



opinion, should strike him more with wonder is that I 

 absolutely paid the tailor." 



Eighty guineas for a morning suit of satin and i8o for 

 a ballroom suit are items which throw into the shade the 

 extravagance of the modern jeunesse doree, always ex- 

 cepting the late Marquis of Anglesey. And when one 

 considers that the young gentleman who thus attired 

 himself was an ensign in the Guards, with four shillings 

 per diem as pay, whose private income from all sources 

 was under ;^iSOO per annum, one can hardly wonder that 

 he made desperate efforts to supplement so inadequate a 

 revenue by reckless betting. 



Naturally, Colonel Hanger came to grief in the end. He 

 was for some time an inmate of the King's Bench Prison, 

 where, " being determined to ascertain how cheap a gentle- 

 man could live and want for nothing necessary to his 

 maintenance — namely, a hearty breakfast and dinner every 

 day," he contrived to live on a guinea a week. 



His friend, Richard Tattersall (" Old Tat "), the founder 

 of the famous house, and Colonel M'Mahon got him out of 

 the Bench, and he managed to shuffle along somehow till 

 death claimed him in 1824. 



But the Prince of Plungers was without question Harry 

 Mellish. For five brief years Mellish was the most con- 

 spicuous figure in the circles of sport and fashion. He 

 commenced his racing career in 1801, when his Welshman, 

 by Sir Peter Teazle, with that wily jockey Billy Peirce in 

 the saddle, won for him a match of 50 guineas at Durham 

 races. From that time forward he was passionately 

 attached to the Turf, and in matching and handicapping 

 his skill was extraordinary. But on one occasion the 

 Duke of Cleveland, the Jesuit of the Turf, as he was called, 

 was one too many for the accomplished Mellish. The 

 Duke, who was then Lord Darlington, matched his 

 Pavilion, a horse afterwards purchased by the Prince 

 Regent, against Mellish's Sancho for 3000 guineas a-side. 

 The two horses had already met once in the New Claret 

 Stakes over the Lewes course, and Pavilion had won. 

 The second match was run over the same course in the 

 July of 1806. Mellish had backed Sancho to win him 



