The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-07 00:00:00

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TATTERSALL'S-OR THE CORNER.

(From the London Review.)
Tattersall's is essentially an English institution.
Its foreign imitation in the Champs Elysees is quite
another thing. There is no place like Tattersall's
throughout the entire world. At Tattersall's swells
and snobs, princes of the blood and pothouse betting-
list keepers, shoulder each other in the narrow
dreary passage which might be the entrance to the
mews of St. George's Hospital, supposing the
patients to keep horses. Until he had proceeded
some distance down the avenue, the stranger might
have no idea what place he was about to visit; for
the outside selvage of horsiness, the tattered red-
waistcoated horse holders, the loungers and loafers
and straw-chewers, are common to the portals of all
the great horse-dealers and livery-stable keepers,
rnghtot /limb
and are t 9 be found hanging about Limmer's, the
Epsomo dP
Tavistock, and other hotels essentially devoted to
three-year-old
hre bygoneey ear. and Ascot bachelors. Probably the first thing that would have
the. effect of local colour on his mind would be the
aumstbalieneimd ithautonrtioafg-tahaeagt:tehate ‘a`
aJleararrjra'f' ofa
a a
amdi sae raahbal
shapeless
a in-
dividualesa
Directory, fam e
velvet hunting-cap—who is now reduced to proffer
cigar-lights for sale as an excuse for
mendicancy.
This wretched being who, with his
meaningless
mouthings,reminds one more of a f'sx 'al way o,nadhaun
or a Swiss cretin, than of a sturdy English vagrant,
is a kind of outpost sentinel of the grand gathering
of " noble sportsmen," and after passing him you
plunge at once into the ruck, and can have no
doubt about your having fallen among thieves. It
is a thoroughly well known fact that the palmy
days of the turf are gone by, and that but very few
gentlemen are now numbered among its supporters.
These gentlemen, who, impelled by natural love of
racing, high opinion of their own sharpness, han-
kering after gain, or that invincible desire of being
" cocks of the walk," which leads them to love
lower society—yet hold fondly by old traditions,
and enrol themselves as patrons of the turf, will be
found at the bottom of this avenue in a square brick
building, which looks like a Dissenters' meeting-
house, but which is in reality the famous "Sub-
scription-room," to which access can only be had by
members duly balloted for, who pay a subscription of
two guineas a year, and whose exclusiveness is
guaranteed by a specially surly porter, assisted oc-
casionally by a couple of policemen. Here, and on
a green sward known as the Ring, sprinkled here
and there with trees, and shady as the lives of many
of its frequenters, do my Lord Tom Noddy and his
comrades compare their " metallics," and do their
best to profit by their own information and their
own ignorance. This is the paradise of the betting
man, where he sits at his ease and listens to blandly-
quoted odds, and the latest stable tips, and the most
recent canards from distant training grounds ; and
here a physiognomist would find inanity and vacuity
the most prevalent character-types. Occasionally
you come upon the set mouth, the sunken eye, the
furtive glance, and the firm face, but a study of the
subscription -room and the Ring would show reced-
ing foreheads, long upper lips, silky moustaches
and whiskers, expressionless light eyes, and an at-
tempt at a chin sloping rapidly from the mouth
into the turned-down collar, to be the principal
features.

But if this be Paradise, take one look at the
crowd of Peris " at the gate," and kept there by the
surly porter. These be your men into whose hands
the business of the turf, erst conducted by a Ben-
tinck, a Gully, a Gratwicke, and a Zetland, has de-
scended. Here they are, of all styles. Big, heavy,
elderly men from Yorkshire and the northern coun-
ties, red faced and hard voiced; dressed in thick,
square-cut, ill-setting shooting coats and trousers ;
wearing big hoots, and hats with long nap, and
large rolls of cravat under the chin. Publicans from
Shoreditch and the Minories, fat, jowly, greasy
men, with no whiskers and short cut hair, dressed
in black, with black satin waistcoats a little frayed
near the pockets by the silver watch guard—men
whose small chaise carts, drawn by tiny fast-trotting
ponies, now covered with leopard-skin rugs, arc
awaiting them in Grosvenor-place, under the sha-
dow of Mr. Wyatt's hideous mounted effigy of " the
Dook." Lithe, light-limbed little men, with fair
hair flattened to their heads under their billycock
hats, and close-fitting cutaway coats and tight
trousers end long feet, and cravats so flit that
they looked as if they had been ironed when on,and
always ornamented with a pin in the shape of a very
pewtery-looking fox's head, with red glass eyes, or
a horse's shoe with each nail distinctly picked out.
Carpenters with the smell of the shavings and the
chips yet hanging about them ; mechanics with their
eyes yet ring-dovey in appearance from the black
that will not wash off; the thorough London cab
with his seedy second-hand clothes, his shiny broken
hat, his never-absent "aggravator" side-curl, his
restless eye, and sour, mordant tongue ; a sprinkling
of professionally-attired grooms, acceptance list
betters, and broken-down touts—a steaming, seeth-
ing, hoarsely-whispering, blaspheming mass. " Who
wants to bet ? I'll lay against Jack o"Arts ! I'll
lay against Ketch-'em-'live! I'll lay against any
one bar one. To back the field ! who wants to back
the field ?" As the vague rumours come
hoot these
asof
base imitators from the lordly Ring,
breaking-downs or bad gallops, or intended scratch
ings,ordiminished powers of "staying,"are brought
up by the outlying touts, so does the business vacil-
late in this dirty and unrecognised Exchange. But
one thing may be looked upon as certain; that when
thousands of pounds change aristocratic owners in
the Paradise of the Subscription-room, thousands of
half-crowns are bandied between the dirty hands
of the disconsolate Peris outside.
There is another and a pleasanter phase of Tatter-
There
Monday morning, the sal© day, when the
racing men are absent, and the yard is filled with
intending buyers, connoisseurs of horseflesh, or men
with horsy tendencies, passing a vacant hour. This
yard is on the right hand, at the bottom of the
passage,
and is of the stable stably ; entered through
a square orifice in a sheet of wood, and when entered
found to be a square, roughly paved court, with a
cupola in the centre, serving as the auctioneer's
rostrum, with a painted effigy of a fox for hisdesk,
e e are
and a bust of George IV. over his head. 'There
covered avenues round the sides, with here and r
there
loose boxes leading into them; and on the left a
perfect grove of stable-doors. Thereamfoot has come
is a crowded
attendance, for young Lord st
to grief at last, and his hunting stud is coming to
Stamp
foot
hammer. There are in
fencers well known with the the printed list rare
Quorn and the Pytch-
ley and the Flat Hat Hunt. Little difficulty in
selling these horses; for half the people present
in
have known themthe field, and the other half
made acquaintance with them yesterday afternoon,
when, in that noble desecration of the Sabbath at
which Government winks, and in which all the
hard-working sporting men who have nothing to
do in the other six week-days delight, the stables
were visited by everyone wanting a horse, or having
nothing else to fill up the time between luncheon
and the hour when it was proper to " do" the Park.
Mr. Tattersall mounts the rostrum, and the first lot,
Kicking Kate, is led out—a tall, powerful, dark bay
mare, sixteen hands high, arched neck, clews lean
bead, and hind-quarters looking as though they
could shoot a rider " into the next county." A
sunken scowling eve, though showing a good deal
,
of white, and a tendency to back-stiffening., betray
the origin of Kate's cognomen. The order comes,
" Give her a run," and away goes the mare, with a
helper at her head, up and down the gravelled
avenue, occasionally lashing out right and left, and
finally stands against the wall with all her pointy
well displayed. Then the crowd gathers round her
--a slim, fair man, with breezy whiskers and keen
eyes, dressed in a dark overcoat and tightsfitting
fawn-coloured, ribbed trousers, puts his ear close tc,
the mare's mouth, and listens to her breathin
g
arm in arm—all in
Three young gentlemen,
tightly-

V "~

JNEWSPAPER
(
buttoned frock-coats and rather f%cll-
- upon the exact model of H.R.
as he appears in the thousand carve
traits which he has generously permi
taken—look wonderingly at the animal, .
change opinions that there is " something s
ter with her legs;" to the immense delight` o: the
me
white-hatted old gentleman standing by, wilo' has
lived among horses from his birth, and who knows
that those scars and marks are best proofs of Katt
prowess in the field. Two or three Frencl
gentlemen will also probably be found amen g.
the crowd, subscribers to Le Sport, faith-
ful attendants at the Chantilly race-coup
naembres du Jockey Club, and Anglomanini s,
carefully got up in the style prevalent among Ent ;-
lishmen 12 years ago—shaved chins, mutton-cho, o
whiskers,
stiff, stand-up collars, almost brimlesi
hate, yet who are utterly impossible to be mistaken,
for anything but masquerading Frenchmen as they
are. Swells are there, too, gorgeous and solemn ;
stockbrokers on the look-out for clever trotting
mares for their dog-carts; Rowdy, the banker,
wmiting a big horse with high action for Mrs.
Rowdy's brougham ; a
stout man with his coat-
collar turned up, but looking very suspiciously like
a country parson, who is examining with great in-
terest a weight-carrying
cob ; and a Paterfamilias
urged on by his boy to the acquisition of a grey
pony. The sale proceeds : Kicking Kate falls, at
the price of £lBO, to the man who listened to her
breathing, who is Rasp, the well-known horse-
dealer, and who will sell her again in a week for
250. Other lots are brought on, and in an hour
or two Lord Stampfoot's creditors are richer by a
couple of thousand pounds. The sipgle horses then
come to the hammer, and are quickly disposed of ;
the stockbrokers get their trotting mares, Rowdy
his big brougham horse, and parvus lulus his grey
pony; and when business is over, the grooms and
helpers betake themselves to a very quaint, old-
fashioned tavern, part of the establishment, situate
within the gates, and recruit their strength with
unlimited beer.

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There is a rumour that it is in contemplation at
once to remove Tattersall's to other premises north
of Hyde-park, and this seemed therefore a fitting
opportunity to describe it as it appeared in its last
year on the ground which it has occupied for three
quarters of a century.