150 SPORTING STORIES 



stomach in with his hands in a most comical manner when 

 he ran. Many a match he won against 'Varsity men who 

 fancied themselves, and would give him ten yards start in a 

 hundred. 



Newmarket and its races have, of course, always had 

 irresistible attractions for the sporting undergraduate of 

 Cambridge, and not long since I came across a curious 

 illustration of this as far back as the reign of George II. 

 It is a letter from a Fellow-Commoner of King's College, 

 Cambridge, to a friend in London, and I give it in full as a 

 racy revelation of the character of the sporting under- 

 graduate of that time. 



"Dear Jack, — I was in hopes I should have met you at 

 Newmarket Races, but, if your luck had turned out so bad 

 as mine, you did better to stay away. Dick Riot,^ Tom 

 Lowngeit, and I went together to Newmarket the first day 

 of the meeting. I rode my little bay mare, that cost me 

 thirty guineas in the North. I never crossed a better tit 

 in my life. She is as fleet as the wind. I raced with Dick 

 and Tom all the way from Cambridge to Newmarket. 

 Dick rode his roan gelding, and Tom his chestnut mare, 

 both of which, as you know, have speed, but I beat them 

 hollow. 



" I cannot help telling you that I was dressed in my blue 

 riding-frock with plate buttons, with a leather belt round 

 my waist, my jemmy turn-down boots made by Tull, my 

 brown scratch bob, and my hat with the narrow silver lace, 

 cocked in the true sporting taste ; so that altogether I don't 

 believe there was a more knowing figure on the course. I 

 was very flush too, Jack, for, Michaelmas Day happening 

 damned luckily just about the time of the races, I had 

 received fifty guineas for my quarterage. 



"As soon as I came upon the course, I met with some 

 jolly bucks from London. I never saw them before. 

 However, we were soon acquainted, and I took up the 

 odds ; but I was damnably let in, for I lost thirty guineas 

 slap the first day. The day after I had no remarkable 

 luck one way or the other ; but at last I laid all the cash I 



^ The names have been altered. 



