Another gruesome episode of the Turf was the suicide of Mr Roger Brograve early in June 1813, owing to losses by betting. He was the brother of Sir George Brograve, and had been a captain in the 2nd Dragoons, and for some years had betted heavily. Originally, he had a competent, if not a splendid fortune, but, at the previous Newmarket meeting, he had lost heavily, and he was known to have lost £10,000 on the Derby. This he could not meet, and he shot himself. Hundreds of similar cases might be given, but this one must serve as an example. That large sums were wagered and lost and won at this time we may learn from the fact that in 1816 no less a sum than £300,000 is said to have been paid and received at Tattersall’s in the betting settlement on that year’s Epsom races. Of the origin of bookmaking, Mr Dixon (The Druid) has written so well in _The Post and the Paddock_, that I cannot do better than copy him _verbatim_: “Betting between one and the field was the fashion which Turf speculation assumed in the days of powder and periwigs, and Ogden (the only betting man who was ever admitted to the Club at Newmarket), Davies, Holland, Deavden, Kettle, Bickham, and Watts, ruled on the Turf ‘Change. With Jem Bland, Jerry Cloves, Myers (an ex-butler), Richard (the Leicester Stockinger), Mat Milton, Tommy Swan of Bedale (who never took or laid but one bet on a Sunday), Highton, Holliday, Gully, Justice, Crockford, Briscoe, Crutch Robinson, Ridsdale, Frank Richardson, and Bob Steward, etc., the art of bookmaking arose, and, henceforward, what had been more of a pastime among owners, who would back their horses for a rattler when the humour took them, and not shrink from having £5000 to £6000 on a single match, degenerated into a science. All the above, with the exception of two, have passed away, like the Mastodons, never to return. Nature must have broken the mould in which she formed the crafty Robinson, as he leant on his crutch, with his back against the outer wall of the Newmarket Betting Rooms, and, with his knowing, quiet leer, and one hand in his pocket, offered to ‘lay agin Plenipo.’