12 SPORTING STORIES 



ment he indulged in. He was an enthusiastic cricketer, 

 and he and his brother, the Duke of Cumberland, who was 

 equally keen on the game, were perpetually getting up 

 matches against one another, each heavily backing his own 

 eleven. But Fred went further than this : he had a bet on 

 every run, or notch, as it was then termed, that was made. 



Now, to be a patron of cricket in those days was con- 

 sidered by respectable persons to be a mark of the most 

 depraved taste. It was in far worse repute as a pastime 

 than even the Prize Ring, which Broughton had just brought 

 into fashion, and it was denounced in far stronger language 

 than the Anti-Gambling League nowadays uses against the 

 Turf. For example, I find the following tirade against " the 

 noble game" in the GentleinarCs Magazine of 1743 : — 



" The diversion of cricket may be proper in holiday time 

 and in the country, but upon days when men ought to be 

 busy, and in the neighbourhood of a great city, it is not 

 only improper, but mischievous to a high degree. It draws 

 numbers of people from their employment, to the ruin of 

 their families. It brings together crowds of apprentices 

 and servants whose time is not their own. It propagates 

 a spirit of idleness at a juncture when, with the utmost 

 industry, our debts, taxes, and decay of trade will scarcely 

 allow us to get bread. It is the most notorious breach of 

 the laws, as it gives the most open encouragement to 

 gaming, the advertisements most impudently reciting that 

 great sums are laid, so that some people are so little 

 ashamed of breaking the laws which they had a hand in 

 making, that they give public notice of it." 



No one blamed either the Prince of Wales or the Duke 

 of Cumberland much for their patronage of the Turf, or 

 even of the Prize Ring, but all the moralists of the age 

 were down upon them for patronising the dreadfully low, 

 demoralising game of cricket ! There were even some 

 who went so far as to regard " poor Fred's " death from 

 the results of an accident at cricket as a judgment upon 

 him for engaging in that disreputable and immoral 

 pastime ! 



On the race-course the Prince of Wales was a plunger of 

 the most pronounced type, and his losses at Newmarket 



