In the eighteenth century the bloods of the day bet on anything and everything. A well-known spendthrift, for instance, made a practice of backing one raindrop to roll down a window quicker than another—a practice which gave rise to the following lines:—
The bucks had dined, and deep in council sat,
Their wine was brilliant, but their wit grew flat:
Up starts his Lordship, to the window flies,
And lo! "A race!—a race!" in rapture cries;
"Where?" quoth Sir John. "Why, see the drops of rain
Start from the summit of the crystal pane—
A thousand pounds! which drop with nimblest force,
Performs its current down the slippery course!"
The bets were fix'd—in dire suspense they wait
For vict'ry pendent on the nod of fate.
Now down the sash, unconscious of the prize,
The bubbles roll—like pearls from Chloe's eyes,
But ah! the glittering charms of life are short!
How oft two jostling steeds have spoiled the sport.
Lo! thus attraction, by coercive laws,
Th' approaching drops into one bubble draws—
Each curs'd his fate, that thus their project cross'd;
How hard their lot, who neither won nor lost!
Besides the huge sums which were lost at games (in 1793, £22,000 changed hands in a single day between two players at some billiard-rooms in St. James's Street), a great deal of money was frittered away in matches of an eccentric kind.
In 1722, for instance, a number of young men subscribed for a piece of plate, which was run for in Tyburn Road by six asses, ridden by chimney-sweepers. Two boys rode two asses on Hampstead Heath for a wooden spoon, attended by above five hundred persons on horse-back. Women running for Holland smocks was not uncommon; and a match was even projected for a race between women, to be dressed in hooped petticoats. Considerable sums of money are said to have changed hands over these events, whilst a wager of £1000 depended on a match between the Earl of Lichfield and Mr. Gage that the latter's chaise and pair should outrun the Earl's chariot and four. The ground was from Tyburn to Hayes, and Mr. Gage lost through some accident.
In 1735, Count de Buckeburg, a well-known German author, on a visit to England, laid a considerable wager, that he would ride a horse from London to Edinburgh backwards, that is, with the horse's head turned towards Edinburgh, and the Count's face towards London; and in this manner he actually rode the journey in less than four days.
At the end of the eighteenth century an officer trotted fifteen miles from Chelmsford to Dunmow in one hour and nine minutes with his face to the tail.
The eccentric wager made by George, Lord Orford, an ancestor of the present writer, is well known. The latter, in 1740, bet another nobleman a large sum that a drove of geese would beat an equal number of turkeys in a race from Norwich to London. The event proved the justness of his Lordship's expectations, for the geese kept on the road with a steady pace, but the turkeys, as every evening approached, flew to roost in the trees adjoining the road, from which the drivers found it very difficult to dislodge them. In consequence of this, the geese arrived at their destination two days before the turkeys.
This nobleman, who, by his eccentricities, had acquired the name of the mad Lord Orford, trained three red deer to draw him in a light phaeton, and in this uncommon equipage he frequently made excursions to some distance, in Norfolk and Suffolk, till a singular adventure taught him the danger of the practice.
One morning in winter, when the scent lay well on the ground, he was taking one of his common drives towards Newmarket; his way was over the heath. It happened that a pack of hounds, being out for a chase, took scent of the deer, opened and followed in full cry. The deer caught the death sound, took the alarm, and set off at full speed. It was in vain his Lordship endeavoured to pull them in; fear of death was greater than fear of their lord, and they dashed off towards Newmarket, a place they were well accustomed to. The dogs were at their heels, but the deer were sufficiently in advance to reach the inn they were accustomed to put up at, when they dashed into the yard, with their terrified lord close at their heels, and the hounds not far behind them; the ostlers, however, exerted themselves to get the gates fastened before the hounds came up, when the whipper-in called them off.
In 1758, Miss Pond, daughter of the compiler and publisher of Ponds Racing Calendar, wagered a thousand guineas that she would ride a thousand miles in a thousand hours. This feat she accomplished (it is said on one horse) by the 3rd of May, having begun in April. A few weeks later Mr. Pond rode the same horse in two-thirds of the time.