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 a rogue', and also of 'the legs at Marylebone', who tried, for once in vain, to corrupt some primitive specimens of Hambledon innocence. He says, also, the grand matches of his day were always made for 500l. a side. Add to this the fact that the bets were in proportion, that Jim and Joe Bland, of turf notoriety, Dick Whitlom, of Covent Garden, Simpson, a gaming house keeper, and Toll, of Isher, as regularly attended at a match as Crockford and Gully at Epson and Ascot; and the idea that all the Surrey and Hampshire rustics should either want or resist strong temptations to sell is not to be entertained for a moment. The constant habit of betting will take the honesty out of any man. A half-crown sweepstakes, or betting such odds as lady's long kids to gentleman's short ditto, is all very fair sport; bntbut [sic] if a man after years of high betting can still preserve the fine edge and tone of honest feeling, he is indeed a wonder. To bet on a certainty must be very bad moral practice.

'If gentlemen wanted to bet,' said Beldham, 'just under the pavileonpavilion [sic] sat men ready with money down to give and take the current odds, and by far the best men to bet with, because if they lost it was all in the way of business: they paid their money and did not grumble'. Still they had all sorts of tricks to make their betting safe. 'One artifice', said Mr. Ward, 'was to keep a player out of the way by a false report that his wife was dead.' Then these men would come down to the Green Man and Still, and drink with us, and always said that those who backed us, or 'the nobs', as they called, them sold the matches: and so, sir, as you are going the round beating up the quarters of the old players, you will find