Lord Palmerston’s Committee pronounced against play and pay betting, that is, the system under which the bet is valid whether the horse runs or not. In betting at the post for ready money the bet is off to-day if the horse does not start. Not only is the Turf more popular than it ever was before. It binds sections of the polite world more closely together than they are held by any political or ecclesiastical cement. It is thus a social interest of the first importance which a prudent statesman makes a point of conciliating not less than he would the clergy, the lawyers, or even the licensed victuallers. The constantly increasing encouragement given to the Turf by men who have no personal end to serve, and whose refinement must be revolted by the aspect of many of its accessories, justifies the conclusion that the racecourse is indispensable to the breed of horses.
From the Plantagenet and Tudor period the best horses in England were raced; they were made better that they might be raced more successfully. Hence the wise introduction, for beauty as the crown of strength, of Arab blood, especially under Charles II. and onwards. The early excellence of stallions followed. The sires of racers begot also English hunters, so that the best horses in the hunting field to-day derive their pedigrees on one side from the founders of the best racing blood. The general utility animal, seen in carriages and cabs, is bred in the same way but has just fallen below the hunter level. Thus, without thoroughbred sires, the excellence of our horses generally must decline. The expense of breeding the best quadrupeds of the stud book is so heavy that without the stimulus of racing, the stock could scarcely be maintained.
The long distance plates on the Turf dating back to the time of Anne have been replaced by the Queen’s premium stallions, periodically on view at Islington, and at the disposal, for a small fee, of horse owners throughout the country. These fine animals are almost all the winners of races. The necessary expense of racing suggests the usefulness, as in an earlier chapter was seen, of the sporting plutocrat to the Turf, and hence to the national quadruped generally. Unless the sport gave to its followers some sort of social diploma, the wealthy breeders whom the mart has furnished to the racecourse, from the earliest of the Rothschilds down to the latest of the Hirsches or the Maples, would scarcely have given time and money to their own pleasure as well as to the country’s good.
To pass to the horse in another aspect, the conjectural estimate of packs of hounds at the beginning of the hunting season in 1837 was 28. At a corresponding date in 1897 the ascertained figures were 61. This does but faintly indicate the change undergone by the national sport. Not even John Leech’s pictorial satire in Punch could deter the Cit from the hunting field, or discourage him from educating himself into a more than passable rider across country. Capel Court has or had a cry of beagles of its own. At longer distances from London than the Surrey pastures 15 per cent. of the wearers of pink and buckskin wear on ordinary days the glossy uniform of the brokers and jobbers of the House. A little earlier in the year, these sportsmen were tramping after partridges by the early September twilight that they might be at their business in the City before the West End sits down to breakfast. This is a specimen of what goes on throughout the kingdom. On the outskirts of all great cities, co-operative shootings are as common as co-operative stores.
Other pastimes are too much in daily evidence to need many words or to allow the apprehension that the male acceptance of the feminine lawn tennis implies any degeneration in the Victorian race of youth. The addition of Scotch golf to English games, and the vast improvement as to pace, style, and time shown by crews at Henley or on the Metropolitan waters in 1897 over 1837 may dispel any fears of a deterioration of youthful stamina or of muscular zeal. Whether as regards its own surface or the meadows which it waters, the Thames in the South, like the Tyne or Mersey in the North, is still a river that feeds the sea of English manhood.
As regards cricket, it is impossible to compare ancient or modern players, batsmen or bowlers; so entirely have the conditions of the game been transformed. The high scoring of the later Victorian days which would have amazed earlier players seems due, first, to the vastly improved pitches, making as they do, almost any bowling fairly easy; secondly, to the great increase of good players, consequent of course upon the evergrowing popularity of the game. The first of these facts, the improved pitches, explains why the difficult shooter that before 1875 was so fatal to batsmen at Lord’s has now become a very rare ball. Although the power of the bat seems to-day greater than that of the ball, the ground had no sooner become easy and overhand bowling allowed, than the utmost was done to equalize the attack and defence. Hence the bowling is much straighter than of old; long leg and long stop no longer have a place among the fieldmen, and the absence of long leg hitting and fielding makes the game less interesting for spectators; still the grounds improve, the scoring consequently increases. The feature which has transformed the bowling seems to be that now the best bowlers are fast with a break even on a hard wicket: whereas formerly they only broke on a sticky wicket. The still astounding power of the best bowlers is shown by the havoc they make when they get a sticky wicket to bowl on. In fine weather there is no serious obstacle to the stupendous scoring; the batting is of a more monotonous type than it used to be, and the play therefore less interesting to onlookers.
Here, as elsewhere, individual influence has been a transforming power. Between 1871 and 1883 when W. G. Grace was at his best, no fast bowler could do anything with him. Slow bowling, therefore, was adopted to keep down his run getting. As this batsman has taken his place among the veterans the old swift style has come into vogue once more. In the opinion of the greatest experts of modern cricket, as W. G. Grace is the most formidable bat, so Richardson of Surrey first, after him, Spofforth, the Australian, in his middle career, have been the most difficult bowlers.
The popularity of football, whose vogue is a recent Victorian growth is shown by the collection of 50,000 spectators at the Crystal Palace, to witness a final tie for the Association Cup. Admissions of 20,000 and 30,000 are daily events in all great towns; the money thus paid by the public has created the professional football player. Hence many questions on which authorities differ. The subject has divided the different football unions: the northern Rugby clubs having seceded to found a union of their own. The feuds among football legislators are thus as varied and violent as the forms of muscular ferocity which the game itself allows. That these can be minimized by a strenuous and keen referee is probable; that when this functionary is slack, professional football resembles the revival of the prize ring in disguise is admitted.[117] Football may seem to the mere observer almost to have become a misnomer, when carrying the ball is part of the game; when hands, shoulders, chest, fists, are nearly as active as legs and feet.
Among indoor games chess is that which has been transformed the most during our age. Here something may be attributed to the example of the Prince Consort, who was not, however, an invincible player, but more to his youngest son, the lamented Prince Leopold, who did a good deal to popularize the game. In point of universal popularity chess will never quite rival whist or billiards. It lacks the element of chance in the first, and the display of physical skill in the second which must ever chiefly fascinate men. The chess player, too, when well matched, uses more brain power than the whist player. Each has to keep the judgment perpetually alert. But the conventions in chess are left behind when the opening has been matured into the mid game, while the conventions of whist relieve the whist player continuously during the progress of the rubber.
Throughout the whole of this age chess has grown in favour among us. In most of our large towns for every chess club existing in 1847, there are ten or fifteen in 1897. On the Queen’s accession English chess players still felt the stimulus given to the game in London from 1780-95 by André François Danican, commonly known as ‘Philidor.’ Hence may be dated the earliest English chess clubs, and the scientific study of the game. Three years before the Victorian age began, a series of matches was played by the English Alexander MacDonell and the French Labourdonnais. In 1844, the English Howard Staunton defeated the French St Amant in a match which decided the championship of the world. This, followed in 1847 by the publication of Staunton’s Chessplayer’s Handbook, brought hundreds more to the board.