It was contended on the part of Mr. Pigot, that, as he could not possibly win, he ought not to lose, and it was compared to a ship insurance. If the policy upon a ship had not the words "lost or not lost" inserted, and the ship should be actually lost at the time of making that policy, it would be void.
For the plaintiff it was argued that the contract was good, because the fact being wholly unknown to the parties, it could not influence either.
The wager was held to be good, and the plaintiff obtained a verdict of £500, the amount of his wager.
The most important match made by the "evergreen votary of Venus," as Old Q. was called, was in 1750, when, as Lord March, he bet Count O'Taafe, an Irish gentleman notorious for eccentricity, one thousand guineas that a carriage with four wheels could be devised capable of being drawn at not less than nineteen miles within an hour.
Wright of Long Acre exhausted all the resources of his craft to diminish weight and friction; the harness was made of silk combined with leather. Four thoroughbreds, with two clever light-weight grooms, were selected, and several trials, causing the death of some horses, were run. On August 29, 1750, the match came off over a course of a mile at Newcastle, many thousands of pounds being wagered on the result, which was favourable to Lord March, the carriage being drawn over the appointed distance well within the hour. Three of the four horses which drew the machine had won plates. The leaders carried about eight stone each, the wheelers about seven, and the chaise, with a boy in it, about twenty-four. The time was 53 minutes 27 seconds.
The print (here reproduced) was published in 1788 by J. Rodger, after the original painting by Seymour, which is now, I believe, in the possession of Lord Rosebery.
Large sums were laid upon very trivial and useless performances, and a certain number of individuals, well-known for their physical strength, used to undertake to carry out all sorts of queer tasks.
In 1789 a man called Shadbolt, a respectable innkeeper at Ware, called Goliath on account of his great muscular powers, undertook, for a considerable wager, to run and push his cart from Ware to Shoreditch Church (a distance of twenty-one miles) in ten hours, which he easily performed within the space of six hours and a few seconds, without the least appearance of fatigue. Great sums were won and lost on the occasion.
All sorts of curious wagers were laid in Ireland. The celebrated Buck Whalley, for instance, once jumped over a carrier's cart on horse-back for a bet. This he did from an upper story of a house, quantities of straw being laid on the other side of the cart.
Thomas Whalley, known as Jerusalem Whalley, owing to the journey which he made for a wager to Jerusalem, was the son of a gentleman of very considerable property in the north of Ireland. His father, when advanced in years, married a lady much younger than himself, and left her a widow with seven children.