Twice round the clock; or, The hours of the day and night in London

by George Augustus Sala

Tattersall’s is a curious sight at all times, and has something pervading it quite sui generis. Even when the ring is deserted by the gentleman turfites, and when no sales by auction of race-horses, hunters, carriage-horses, carriages, or fox-hounds, are proceeding in the court-yard (the auctioneer’s rostrum is close to the king-crowned, fox-decorated temple), there is ample food for observation and amusement in the contemplation of the extraordinary array of hangers-on, who, at all times and seasons, summer and winter, are to be found about the purlieus of the Corner. I do not so much speak of the mere grooms, stable-boys, coachmen, and helpers, who have horses to mind or carriages to look after. You may find their prototypes down every mews, and in every livery-stable. The originals to whom I allude are to be seen only here, and on race-courses, hanging about the grand-stand and the weighing-house. They are entirely different to the nonchalant individuals who, in short coats, and a straw in their mouths, haunt the avenues of Aldridge’s Repository, in St. Martin’s Lane. They would appertain, seemingly, to a superior class; but from top to toe—laterally, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally—they are unmistakeably horse-flesh loving, and by horse-flesh living, men. It is not but you will find white neckcloths and black broadcloth in their attire, but there is a cut to the coat, a tie to the neckcloth, that prevents the possibility of error as to their vocation. They are sporting men all over. Hard-featured, serious-looking, spare-limbed men mostly, much given to burying their hands in their coat-pockets (never in their trousers), and peaceably addicted to the wearing of broad-brimmed hats. Now, the general acceptation of a “sporting” man would give him a tall, shiny hat, with a narrow brim, and considerably cocked on one side; yet I do verily believe that, were these men attired in buttonless drab, brown beavers, striped worsted hose, and buckles, that they would preserve the same sporting identity. They are the wet Quakers of the turf. What the exact nature of their multifarious functions about horses may be, I am not rightly informed. I conjecture them to be trainers, country horse-dealers, licensed victuallers with a turn for sporting, gentlemen farmers who “breed a colt” occasionally, or, maybe, perfectly private individuals led by an irresistible penchant to devote themselves to the study and observation of horses, and led by an uncontrollable destiny to hang, their lives-long through, about the Corner. Hangers-on of a lower grade there are in plenty. Striped-sleeved waistcoats, corduroy or drab cloth smalls and leggings; nay, even the mighty plush galligaskins of coachmanhood, top boots, fur and moleskin caps, sticks with crutches and a thong at the end, to serve, if needful, as whips; horseshoe scarf pins, and cord trousers made tight at the knees, and ending in laced-up boots. These—the ordinary paraphernalia of racing attire—are to be met with at every step; while the bottommost round of the sporting ladder is to be found in a forlorn creature in a stained ragged jerkin, that once was scarlet, matted hair, and naked feet. He hangs about the entrance, calls everybody “captain,” and solicits halfpence with a piteous whine. I suppose he is a chartered beggar, licensed to pursue his harmless mendicancy here. Perhaps he may have kept hounds and harriers, carriages and horses—may have spent ten thousand a year, gone to the dogs, and turned up again at Tattersall’s. Who knows? You had better give him the benefit of the doubt, and, commiserating his ragged-robin appearance, bestow sixpence on him.

Now let us take a peep at the magnates who are jotting down the current state of the odds in betting-books. Look at them well, and wonder. Why, all the world’s a ring, and all the men and women in it merely betters. To come more nearly towards exactitude, it seems as though a good portion of at least the male part of the community had sent representatives to Tattersall’s, while the genuine sporting element does not seem by any means so strong as you might reasonably expect. The genus “swell,” with his long surtout, double-breasted waistcoat, accurately-folded scarf, peg-top trousers, eyeglass, umbrella, and drooping moustache, is perhaps predominant. And our friend the “swell” is indeed a “welcome guest,” in the “ring,” for he has, in the majority of instances, plenty of money, is rather inclined to bet foolishly—not to say with consummate imbecility—so long as his money lasts he pays with alacrity, and it takes a long time to drain him dry even at betting, which is a forcing engine that would empty another Lake of Haarlem of its contents in far less time than was employed to drain the first.

Your anxious sporting man, with lines like mathematical problems in his shrewd face, is not of course wanting in the assemblage. Here, too, you shall see the City dandy, shining with new clothes and jewellery, who has just driven down from the Stock Exchange to see what is going on at “Tat’s,” and who is a member of the “Ring” as well as of the “House.” But those, perhaps, who seem the most ardent in their pursuit of the fickle goddess, as bearing on the Doncaster St. Leger, are certain florid elderly gentlemen, in bright blue body coats, with brass buttons and resplendent shirt-frills, and hats of the antique elegant or orthodox Beau Brummel form and cock.

Such is the outward aspect of the Ring. Into its penetralia, into the mysteries of its combinations, I, rash neophyte, do not presume to inquire. They are too awful for me. I am ignorant of them, nor, if I knew, should I dare to tell them. I should expect the curtain of the temple to fall down and overwhelm me, as befell the rash stranger who ventured to watch from, as he thought, a secure point of espial, the celebration of the mysteries of Isis at Thebes. Besides, I never could make either head or tail of a betting-book. Poeta nascitur non fit, say the Latins. On devient cuisinier mais on nait rôtisseur—“One may become a cook, but one is born a roaster,” say the French; and I verily believe that the betting-man is to the manner born, and that if he does not feel an innate vocation for the odds, he had much better jump into a cauldron of boiling pitch than touch a betting-book—which theory I offer with confident generosity for the benefit of those young gentlemen who think it a proper thing and a fast thing to make up a book for the Derby or the Oaks, whether they understand anything about the matter or not.

To all appearances, the Ring and the Subscription-room, with the adjacent avenues for the outsiders (you should see the place on the Sunday afternoon before the Derby) are quite sufficient to take up all the accommodation which the “Corner” can afford; but there are many other things done within Messrs. Tattersall’s somewhat crowded premises. There is the auctioneering business; the sales, when whole studs are brought to the hammer, and thousands of pounds’ worth of horseflesh are disposed of in the course of a few minutes. There are the days for the sale of all manner of genteel wheeled vehicles, which have been inspected on the previous day by a committee de haut goût, of which ladies belonging to the élite of fashion are not unfrequently members. For the cream of nobility is, oft-times, not too proud to ride in second-hand carriages.

One more episode of “Corner” life, and I must quit the queer, motley scene. Down below the Subscription-room is another corner occupied by an old-fashioned hostelry, called the “Turf Tap,” and here the commonalty of Tattersall’s frequenters are to be found at any hour of the day, occupied with the process of sustentation by liquid refreshment. And yet, though the place is almost entirely “used” by sporting men, it has very little the appearance of a “sporting” public-house. No portraits of “coaching incidents,” or famous prize-fighters, decorate its walls; no glass-cases containing the stuffed anatomies of dogs of preternaturally small size, and that have killed unheard-of numbers of rats in a minimum of minutes, ornament its bar-parlour; no loudly-boisterous talk about the last fight, or the next race coming off, echoes through its bar; and the landlord hasn’t a broken nose. The behaviour of the company is grave and decorous, almost melancholy; and on the bench outside, wary-looking stablemen, and sober grooms, converse in discreet undertone on “parties” and “events,” not by them, or by any means, to be communicated to the general public. Tattersall’s is a business-like place altogether, and even its conviviality is serious and methodical.

I think I should like to ride a horse and take a turn in Rotten Row, if I only knew how to accomplish the equestrian feat; but I am really afraid to adventure it. There are some people who do things capitally which they have never been taught; and who ride and drive, as it were, by intuition. Irishmen are remarkable for this faculty, and I do not regard as by any means a specimen of boastfulness, the reply of the young Milesian gentlemen to the person who asked him if he could play the fiddle, that he did not know, but that he dared say he could, if he tried. But I am afraid that the mounting of the easiest-going park hack would be too much for your obedient servant, and that the only way of insuring security, would be to get inside the animal and pull the blinds down; or, that being zoologically impossible, to have my coat skirts nailed to the saddle; or to be tied to the body of my gallant steed with cords, in the manner practised in the remotest antiquity by the young men of Scythia on their first introduction to a live horse, and their commencement of the study of equitation. I passed three days once at the hospitable mansion of a friend in Staffordshire, who, the morning after my arrival, wanted me to do something he called “riding to hounds.” I said, “Well out of it,” respectfully declined the invitation, and retired to the library, where I read Roger de Wendover’s “Flowers of History” till dinner time. I daresay the ladies, who all rode like Amazons, thought me a milk-sop; but I went to bed that night without any broken bones. I have an acquaintance, too, a fashionable riding-master at Brighton, a tremendous creature, who wears jack-boots, and has a pair of whiskers like the phlanges of a screw-propeller. He has been obliging enough to say that he will “mount” me any time I come his way, but I would as soon mount the topmost peak of Chimborazo.

FOUR O’CLOCK P.M.: THE PARK.