DISAPPEARANCE OF HIS FORTUNE. 37 



is a character too well known to have the power to 

 influence either the sport itself or other people. So 

 long as he keeps within the pale of the broad rules 

 which regulate racing — and the peculiar shrewdness 

 of the class enables it generally to manage to do 

 so — whatever the adventurer may do is little noticed 

 and certainly not openly canvassed. 



Mr. John Baynton Starkey may be taken as an 

 illustrative example of the class I refer to — the racing 

 gentleman who, if he possesses the power of dis- 

 criminating between good and evil, for some fortuitous 

 or unaccountable reasons elects to follow the latter. 

 For the short time he was with us no man could 

 have been better known, or more universally respected, 

 until the period of his utter collapse, when it was dis- 

 covered that he was shrouded in embarrassments and 

 unable to pay his way or face his troubles. Then he 

 presented the pitiable spectacle of the man who has 

 inflicted loss on all with whom he has been, connected, 

 without the palliation of becoming so reduced through 

 unavoidable misfortune. Mr. Starkey was well edu- 

 cated, generous to a degree, if eccentric to folly. To 

 this eccentricity perhaps his downfall may be attri- 

 buted. He was markedly unostentatious in his mode 

 of living, and had no apparent means of spending 

 £1,000 a year ; and yet in the course of some half- 

 dozen years he managed to get rid of a fortune of 

 £300,000, or at the rate of £50,000 per annum. 

 This is almost incredible. And as he raced, his mis- 



