X PREFACE. 



death of Sir Charles Bunbury in 1820. Few can 

 be aware, until they study the history of the Turf 

 between 1800 and 1840, what its condition was 

 when Lord George Bentinck moved his entire stud 

 from Danebury to Goodwood in 1841. Not until 

 1843 and 1844 did matters come to a crisis. In 

 the former of those years Lord George Bentinck 

 began to take measures to purify the Turf of some 

 of its worst iniquities. His first step was to expel 

 all defaulters from race-courses under the control of 

 the Jockey Club, commencing at Goodwood, which, 

 being the private property of the Duke of Rich- 

 mond, afforded peculiar facilities for banishing and 

 excluding black sheep of all kinds. The immediate 

 result was that, in revenge, a few of the most un- 

 principled frequenters of the race-courses of the 

 United Kingdom banded themselves together to 

 sue several of the most distinguished patrons of 

 the Turf for winning sums of money in excess of 

 £10 by betting on horse-races, in contravention of 

 an obsolete statute of Queen Anne, which com- 

 inenced with the words ''Qui tartly I find from a 

 return ordered by the House of Commons of the 

 number of writs issued by the Court of Exchequer 

 between July 1 and December 31, 1843, that thirty- 

 four were, in all, taken out in the names of Mr J. 

 T. Russell and of Mr C. H. Russell, his brother. 



