The most disquieting feature in the consideration of the state of the country with regard to this habit is its spread among the wage-earning classes. By them it was little practised when it first became systematic in connection with horse-racing among people of better means. Groups of the latter class lost money and fortunes long before the fashion took any general hold of very considerable numbers of the aristocratic and wealthy classes. Betting took place principally at the race meetings. There were grand-stands upon some of the race-courses many years before the close of the eighteenth century, probably the largest being the one at Doncaster, erected in 1779 at a cost of £7000. It was not until ten years later that a regular market for credit betting was established by the institution of Tattersall’s Subscription Rooms; and, that the original purpose of the grand-stand was only for viewing the races, is made clear by the contemporary records. At Ascot Heath, a separate wooden shed had to be used by those who wished to bet. Even as late as 1833, although the Epsom stand was the largest in Europe, the betting market was kept away elsewhere, upon the hill. Six years later, complaints having been made of the betting market being held in the grand-stand at Doncaster, to the annoyance of the spectators, especially ladies, arrangements were decided upon for the future to form an enclosure for betting outside the stand. Similar precautions had previously been taken at Goodwood. Betting was transacted at Newmarket at betting posts, where rings were formed on the heath. Betting was also carried on away from the courses at premises belonging to Tattersall’s in London (which, however, in 1839 consisted merely of a small apartment, with only 300 members on the books), and in the vicinity of the course at the Newmarket Subscription Rooms, where there were only 57 members, other than those belonging to the Jockey Club. There were also special rooms hired at Doncaster, York, and Liverpool for members of either of the above clubs to bet in. A chronicle informs us, in the reign of William the Fourth, that although the number of spectators at Newmarket seldom exceeded 500, mostly of the highest classes, the majority on horseback, the turf was becoming more popular in 1836 and the attendances larger.