Cardsellers, Touts ^ and Aicgitrs. 167 



evening, and who warbled forth from a throat un- 

 conscious of the growing hemp the very choicest of 

 Bacchanal songs whenever his turn came round — 

 had sunk into a low horse poisoner. He had 

 married a lady's maid, and knew French so well, that 

 when on one occasion Lord Stowell (who espied him 

 hard by) was relating to his friends, in that language, 

 the news of a trial which Neale had given his horses 

 that morning, he came up with a most impudent air, 

 giving his lordship joy of having so good a horse, and 

 adding, " I thought he'd win, my Lord — let me stand 

 in 5/. and I'll not tell." And no doubt he did not 

 tell, //// he met his great patrons Joe and Jim Bland. 

 Bishop, an ex-Guy's dispenser, was his confederate in 

 the matter, and turned King's evidence for the sake 

 of the 500 guineas reward which was offered by the 

 Jockey Club, and which it was said they never paid 

 him, after all. Two of Mr. Kit Wilson's July 

 Stakes horses at Perren's stables were those they 

 wished to get at, but as three or four locked troughs 

 stood together at the back of John Stevens's, they 

 mistook between them, and the result was that 

 thirteen of Stevens's lot which were then temporarily 

 under the charge of David Jones, were taken ill, and 

 two of them died. The symptoms were excessive re- 

 laxation (for science has hitherto failed in making 

 horses vomit) ; and when the two were opened, they 

 were as rotten as a pear. The guilty couple had 

 lifted the padlocked lids as high as they could, and 

 poured in the arsenic at nightfall ; and the very hens 

 when they drank of it fluttered feebly, and then died, 

 while the stable cat ran about like a maniac. Dan 

 escaped on this indictment, as well as on that charg- 

 ing him with poisoning Sir F. Standish's Periwi and 

 Lord Kinnaird's The Dandy, which stood at Prince's ; 

 but the Foley indictment was fatal. He lodged at 

 a house opposite " Old Q*s" residence, to be near 

 the field of his touting labours. His favourite maxim 



