street is stretched out there as though it were some Sleepy Hollow whose
inhabitants were drowsing away an empty life. But no greater mistake
could possibly be made: there are no more wide-awake people in the world
than here. Even at Doncaster, where the St. Leger keeps the minds of the
Yorkshire tykes whetted to the keenest edge, there are not sharper
folks.
A race-day during the July or Houghton Meeting makes a very different
picture. Special trains have by midday brought thousands of sportsmen
from London and elsewhere, and the great mansions in the town, usually
closed, are filled with gay parties. Every public-house does a roaring
trade, and the street is thronged with an astonishing number of cabs and
every variety of fly and victoria, whose drivers are all extravagantly
eager to drive you to the course. Whence those vehicles come might form
an interesting subject of speculation. Stalls for the sale of all manner
of possible and impossible things form a continuous line along that
broad thoroughfare. Even uncooked pork sausages are offered for sale,
but what the class of people who flock into Newmarket for half a day are
supposed to want with them it is difficult to conceive. The Newmarket
sportsman is scarcely the kind of person who might be expected to carry
a pound or so of pork sausages with him on to the course, or on his lap,
going home.
In addition to all these stalls and booths, the sellers of “race cards”
are much in evidence, and a long procession of men with that
characteristic equipment of the racing-man, the field-glasses slung over
the shoulders, winds slowly up the long way to the Stand. These are
devotees of the great goddess Chance, who, like Justice, is blind. They
do not hurry, because they have often trod the same path: they are
neither joyful nor gloomy, but just stolid and businesslike, because
they have come this way with such a succession of varied fortune that
they take gain or loss with unchanged demeanour and equal fortitude, and
when they return you shall seek in vain to guess the luck of the day
from their unemotional countenances.
The racing is all done by 3.30 p.m., and in another hour the course is
clear, the town empty of strangers. But the inns are filled with
stable-folk and the many nondescript hangers-on of a great racing
centre. As the evening wears away even the inns clear, and at ten
o’clock all is quiet, except perhaps for a painful orchestra of three
itinerant musicians playing injuriously outside the “Black Bear.” A
drizzly rain falls and the musicians disperse, greatly to the relief of
the ear that listens, not so much because it would as because it must.
Newmarket’s race-day is done, and the cats make love, undisturbed, in
the porticoes. Only within the mansions of the great is the excitement
of the day continued, and there they play bridge until morning glints
greyly through the shutters
XXIII
[Illustration: YARD OF THE “WHITE HART,” NEWMARKET.]
THE houses of this broad street are curiously irregular. Great palatial
mansions alternate with humble taverns; the busy “White Hart” stands
next door to the Duke of Devonshire’s house, and shops elbow other
imposing residences of the great. On the right hand, as you enter the
town, is the large red-brick pile of Queensberry House, built a few
years ago by Lord Wolverton, and at first styled “Ugly House,” from a
successful racehorse of that name; and everywhere in the town its turfy
sympathies are declared in the villas christened with titles that mean
much to those versed in turf history. The customary “Elms,” “Limes,” and
“Montserrats” of villadom here give place to “Bend Or,” “St. Gatien,”
and other horsey mottoes.
But the town has every reason to regret the past. In days before
railways, a race-meeting meant these great establishments being occupied
for days at a time; now it is easily possible to return comfortably to
London in the evening, they are often in use only for a few hours, and
many have long been to let. Where the Palace stood, a Congregational
Chapel and a row of shops front the street.
The churches—St. Mary’s on the Suffolk and All Saints’ on the
Cambridgeshire side—are, on the other hand, quite humble buildings, and
tucked away out of sight in most apologetic fashion, as though in this
Metropolis of the Turf religion were bidden take a back place. Cynic
circumstance has decreed that the best—and, indeed, almost the only—view
of St. Mary’s, the most important of the two buildings, is that gained
from the yard of that eminently sporting and horsey inn, the “White
Hart.” From that point it certainly does contribute to a fine picture,
although its tapering spire, with the clock-bell placed in a little
hutch on one side of the tower, is quaint, rather than pretty or
intrinsically striking. It stands in a damp little churchyard, closely
hemmed in by narrow streets and lanes, with several very old tombstones
inserted in the buttresses; among them one of a seventeenth-century
actor of the Theatre Royal, Newmarket, who in jaundiced tones and the
most gruesome spelling, tells us that life is fleeting and we shall be
as he, and so forth. The old hunks! Sorry himself to leave the stage of
life, he made his exit with that cheering reflection that the curtain
must presently be rung down on the whole company.
It is a dark church within, and with little to reward the pilgrim; but a
curious relic exhibited in a frame on the north wall is interesting. It
is a small purse, found in 1857, during the rebuilding of the south wall
of the chancel. In the course of those operations two debased windows
and an Early English piscina were found. On the top of the piscina was
the purse, of faded white silk, with large tassels, and containing three
Reichening pfennigs or Nuremburg jettons, specimens of the well-known
counters or tokens made in the first part of the sixteenth century by
Hans Schultz, of Nuremburg. They bear on one side the device of the
Reichs apple within a trefoil, and on the reverse an heraldic rose,
surrounded by crowns and fleurs-de-lis. They and the purse all date from
about 1500. A purse of this character is generally represented in sacred
heraldry as the receptacle of the thirty pieces of silver, the reward of
Judas’s betrayal. Maundy money was distributed in purses of this
pattern, so late as the reign of Charles II.
Near by is a tablet to the memory of a Rector, who died in his thirtieth
year, in 1681. His epitaph tells us, “Here lie the mortal remains of R.
Cooke, late Rector of this parish, whose tongue or life I know not which
was the most eloquent.” He exerted himself so much while preaching that
he broke a blood-vessel, and died in the pulpit. “Thus,” concludes the
epitaph, somewhat extravagantly, “he poured out his life-blood for the
Gospel.”
The Church of All Saints, at the other side of the High Street, and in
Cambridgeshire, was wholly rebuilt, as a memorial to Colonel Lord
George John Manners, of Cheveley Park, in 1876. It is interesting only
because of the small black marble tablet, about the size of a
pocket-handkerchief, to the memory of Tregonwell Frampton, which was
on the chancel wall of the old church, but has been shouldered away in
the new building to the darkness of so high a position on the wall of
the tower that the inscription cannot be read without the aid of a
ladder. Frampton, who came of a race of landed proprietors in
Dorsetshire, was “Father of the Turf,” and, as the inscription on the
tablet states, “Keeper of the Running Horses to their Sacred
Majesties, William the Third, Anne, George the First and Second.” He
died, considerably over eighty years of age, in 1727, and thus ended a
remarkable career of bold and eventful gambling in his youth,
variegated by a later course as trainer for those four monarchs. For
that is what the phrase, “Keeper of the Running Horses,” means.
Historians of racing are even yet uncertain as to the truth of the
grave charge made against him of mutilating the famous horse Dragon,
in order to qualify him technically for a particular race, the
evidence against him not being sufficiently convincing. The year of
this alleged offence was 1682. It seems scarce credible that he would
afterwards have occupied that position of trust with William III. and
the three succeeding sovereigns had there been any foundation for the
charge
XXIV
MODERN Newmarket is typified by that showy giant barrack-hotel, the
“Victoria,” not long since completed, and in its glitter and electric
light an ostentatious sign of these thriving times of new-made wealth
and new-born social ambitions. The older Newmarket, of days when wealth
alone could not purchase rank and the _entrée_ to society, is
represented by the “Rutland Arms,” appropriately staid and severe in its
architectural style, and perhaps, like the older order it embodies, a
little under the cloud of neglect. The great “Rutland Arms” has, any
time these one hundred and forty years past, been the resort of the more
aristocratic patrons of Newmarket, and, looking back upon the town from
the Bury road, it is still the chief feature of the place. Built around
a courtyard, on solid early Georgian lines, of dull red brick and with
high-pitched roof, it makes no pretensions to beauty, and yet does
succeed in giving an impression of majesty and repose. Its noble rooms
are large enough to permit of walking exercise, and instead of the
exiguous cubicles, miscalled bedrooms, of modern hotels, you have
sleeping apartments whose dimensions might almost be expressed in the
measurements of a surveyor rather than in the less generous formula of
the foot-rule. The “Rutland Arms’” sign owes its existence here to the
fact that the manor of Newmarket came into the Manners family in the
reign of George II., by the marriage of the daughter of the sixth Duke
of Somerset with John Marquis of Granby in 1750. This was that famous
“Markis o’ Granby” who earned such military distinction in Germany and
such popularity at home that his name became for many years one of the
most popular of inn signs. The Manners family until recent years owned
the property, together with the neighbouring park of Cheveley, and their
coat-of-arms on a gigantic scale, blazoned in blue and gold, still
decorates the pediment of the hotel in aggressive manner. There are some
who freely, very freely, translate the proud motto _Pour y Parvenir_ as
“For the Parvenus”; but the “Victoria” is the hotel for them, and that
legend really means “To attain,” or, as an American might say, “To get
there.” What the choice of that determined sentiment originally meant,
who shall say? but as the Manners family long since obtained a dukedom,
they may be said to have duly arrived, and it is difficult to see what
else they can want.
[Illustration: NEWMARKET: THE “RUTLAND ARMS.”]
Much might be written of the old-time visitors to the town, but very
little anecdotal matter exists. For unconscious humour there is nothing
so good as the diary of our greatest entomologist, who was here in 1797.
On his tour he had found, with delight, a golden bug basking in the sun
on his window-sill, but with less delight a something of the same genus,
“new to me,” on his stocking, in a little country inn.
On the evening of July 3rd he and a friend drove up to the “Ram” at
Newmarket, as he duly records:—
“Arrived at Newmarket 6 p.m., where the “Ram,” wide-opening its ravenous
maw, stood to receive us. We regale ourselves, after an expeditious
journey, upon a comfortable cup of tea, and then take a walk to the
racecourse, as far as the stands. By the way, we observe _Centaurea
calcitrapa_ plentifully. At some distance we see the Devil’s Dyke, and,
terrified with the prospect, retreat with hasty steps to supper. _Soham
cheese very fine._ _July 4th._—On going into the quadrangle of this
magnificent inn I observed a post-chaise with episcopal insignia; it
belonged to our worthy diocesan. On the panel of the chaise door I took
a new _Empis_.”
XXV
THE flat-racing season at Newmarket—and incidentally the flat-catching
season also—opens with the Craven Meeting on Easter Monday, and ends
with the Houghton, or third October Meeting, towards the close of that
month. Between these are the Second Spring, the two July, and the First
and Second October Meetings, making in all eight annual events. But
Newmarket does by no means hibernate with the end of October and merely
come to life again in the spring. When the flat-racing ends, the
hurdle-racing takes up the thread of sport, and allied with these winter
activities are the runs of the Drag Hounds.
There are many courses on the Heath: the Old Cambridgeshire, nearest the
town, where the historic Red Post, the Duke’s Stand, and some of the old
saddling-stables still remain; the long four-miles’ Beacon Course,
little used in its entirety, now that a two miles’ contest is thought a
good race; the Rowley Mile, named after Charles II., who was known among
his familiars as “Old Rowley,” either from his favourite riding-horse
being so named, or else because his sacred Majesty, so grotesque of
face, was thought to so greatly resemble a frog—and frogs are still, in
country districts, known as “Anthony Rowleys”; the Swaffham Course, and
the Bunbury Mile. There is no finer or more bracing race-ground in the
kingdom than this of Newmarket Heath, nor one so open, or where every
stage of every race can be so well followed. It has no parallel
elsewhere, and is certainly the very antithesis of Ascot, Goodwood, and
Sandown, which are ladies’ opportunities for display, as much as they
are the sportsman’s occasions for betting. Here, when the Cesarewitch
and the Two Thousand Guineas are being run off, it is a very serious and
earnest business, and toilettes only sparingly relieve the Quaker grey
of the sporting crowd.
“No Betting Allowed” is the notice that the enquiring stranger sees
repeated several times on notice-boards over against the New Stand. To
bet legally you must pay your sovereign, half-sovereign, or five
shillings for entrance to the various enclosures in the Stand: to lay or
take the odds in the open is an indictable offence. Yet there is nothing
else but quiet and earnest, but unostentatious, betting going forward
all the while among the crowd assembled outside the rails. The
bookmakers in the various rings, sanctified and immune from molestation
at the hands of the law, by reason of those entrance-fees, may be heard
shouting the odds like maniacs, but here the case is indeed altered.
Those notices might really, with more appearance of common sense, be
spelled “No Betting Aloud,” for the very large amount of betting that
actually does go on, under the very noses of the numerous foot and
mounted police stationed here to prevent it, is conducted in undertones.
Not whispers, by any means, but offers made by bookmakers in
conversational tones, easily to be heard by the crowd at large, of so
many to one on the field; with money changing hands, visibly and
indubitably, for all the world to see, and the same familiar faces of
the bookmakers at every race throughout the year.
Here, in fact, we see the failure of an attempt to make the people moral
by Act of Parliament—a failure that in its failing creates a great deal
more immorality, and of a less venial kind, than that it originally set
out to suppress, for there is nothing more certain than that the police,
who do not see these things with the official eye, do most surely
observe them with the merely physical eyes of ordinary human beings, and
not only refuse to take proper cognisance of them, but “have a bit on”
of their own, and thus place themselves in the Gilbertian position of
rendering themselves liable to be given into their own custody for
betting for ready money in a public place.
It behoves an innocent to be careful how he has that “bit on,” for the
Heath at race-time is no place for the guileless stranger with a few odd
sovereigns to lose. There are those here whose sole mission in life is
to plunder the unwary, and who have the keenest scent for what they
elegantly term a “mug.” Their method is a simple one, as you who have
the curiosity to test it may find. You hang listlessly over the rails
and assume the virtuous air, even if you have it not, of being unspotted
from the world. If that, on the other hand, be your usual wear—why, then
so much the better. The experimentalist in this sort will not have long
to wait before he gets a bite. Already, while he is taking up his
position and gazing around with the air of one quite new to racing, he
has been singled out from the surrounding crowds and marked down for
attack by sharpers who are past-masters in the little frailties of human
nature. Two men approach our innocent in being, or in seeming, and one
of them, under his very nose, pays a little heap of glittering
sovereigns—or counters—into the other’s palm, with the remark that if
he, the payee, had only sprung a little more on that dead cert, the
winnings would have been really _worth_ winning. Poor human nature
swallows that bait as eagerly as trout rise to May flies, and when those
two practical philosophers accidentally, as it were, take their victim
into their confidence, his gold is already as good as gone. It seems the
winner owes his luck to his very good friend here who is “in the know,”
and, with an inexhaustible series of good tips from the Ring, is
willing—nay, eager—to give, not only his friend, but the most casual
pick-up acquaintance of even less than five minutes’ standing, the full
benefit of that information which, if applied in the way he presently
suggests, has the power of transmuting your silver into gold, and of
increasing your solitary sovereign into tens and twenties.
No sport is more enjoyable than that of fooling sharks of this
description; it is its own exceeding great reward. You can play them as
the fisherman does the salmon, and lead them on with ingenuous
innocences and artful idiotcies until they who think they have the
greatest simpleton on earth to deal with, find themselves at length
fairly gaffed and landed.
The amateur simpleton receives the introduction of “my friend from
Tattersall’s” with an air of eager credulity, and casually remarking
that he has never before seen a race nor ever made a bet on one, raises
the confederates’ hopes to the highest pitch. The “friend from
Tattersall’s” has another “moral” for the next race, and recommends a
sovereign placed on the selection; whereupon you consider it from this
light and from that, and discuss it in all its bearings until they are
half-crazed with anxiety. “Surely,” says one, “surely you can afford to
back a certainty?” “Of course, _if_ it is a certainty,” you say; and
then, with the conscience-stricken qualms of the good young man, “Is it
quite right to bet on a certainty?”
But the last touch of comedy comes when, having had those scruples
satisfied, you insert an exploratory thumb and finger in your waistcoat
pocket, and—find, regretfully, that you have come out without any money!
The effect of this is magical, and as you walk up the course to have a
quiet laugh, the bitter curses of the disappointed sharps come after
you, in heartfelt undertones. The horse selected for a winner comes in
with the ruck, as, of course, these fellows had foreseen.
XXVI
NEWMARKET at other than race-times does by no means proclaim its
occupation to the chance traveller along the road. He must rise betimes
and fare forth early who would see the sheeted racers going to or
returning from their morning gallops; but such an early riser will find
much to impress him. Two thousand horses are in training at Newmarket,
but only he who in the brisk and racing early hours of the day sees the
long processions belonging to the various owners filing at a walk along
the High Street can realise the fact. Many a poor body is less warmly
and comfortably clad than a racehorse out for his morning
constitutional. Horse-cloths made with as much attention to individual
fit as given one’s own overcoat cover their bodies and necks, and even
clothe heads and ears, and are all decorated with the owner’s monogram.
The trainer watches these morning gallops from the back of his own
serviceable nag, and notes their “form” with the eye of a general
officer inspecting troops. But he does not, as an American writer
artlessly tells us, “amble by on his old-fashioned Suffolk Punch.” This
little quotation shows you the danger of using terms not properly
understood; for a Suffolk Punch is a horse of the dray-horse kind, and
of the breed often used in ploughing; furrow, if not thoroughbred, and a
thought too substantial for a saddle-horse.
The trainer keenly watches these trials, and so also do certain knowing
gentlemen to whom the offensive name of “touts” is given. It is the
business of their kind to study that “form” for the benefit of those who
read the sporting papers, and to telegraph the performances day by day,
so that the British working man, who so largely supports the bookmakers
and the half-penny evening papers that thrive on the prognostications of
“Captain Coe” and “Old Joe,” may study the “form” aforesaid. With their
heads filled with jargon of this kind, the working men and others, whose
knowledge of a horse does not go far beyond the ability to distinguish
his head from his tail end, are firmly of opinion that they can spot
winners. That they are not often so fortunate does not discourage them,
and when the tipsters fail, as in a very large proportion of cases they
do, they keep a faith that in this otherwise sceptical world is as
touching as it is uncommon.
The life of a tout is infinitely better than once it was, in the days
when they were severely mauled by trainers unwilling that the doings of
their horses should thus be made public. But it was long ago made clear
that, even under the worst conditions, information would by some means
be obtained, and so, furnished with field-glasses of the best, they,
unmolested, garner up the lore of their craft day by day; and the
trainer, conscious of the fact that his stables at least can be made to
hold their secrets, if the gallops no longer can, is found often in
amicable intercourse with these gleaners of useful knowledge.