Doncaster is now, I believe, very much purified, but Sir George Chetwynd describes the gambling that went on there in 1869. “How changed is Doncaster now, from what it was in those days! Then, after dinner, you would go to the subscription rooms and back horses for the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire at 100 to 1 to win large stakes, and even small bookmakers thought nothing of starting £20,000 books. After making their bets, people used to go into an inner room where hazard was being played. Hour after hour the game continued in full swing at a table crowded with punters, with green, black, red and white ivory counters before them denoting £10, £5, £25, and £1. There was an impressive stillness in the room, only broken by the voice of Mr F. Hall, one of the croupiers, who, rake in hand, gave vent to such utterances as, ‘The Castor is backing in at seven, gentlemen. I’ll take on the nick.’ Then came the rattle of the dice, the bang on the table of the box, the quick announcement of the point, and the raking in of the counters on the losing columns, by the two croupiers, one of whom looked like a respectable tradesman, or a magistrate’s clerk. Behind the players stood the proprietor, a tall, handsome man, with carefully trimmed white beard and moustache, more like a general than the keeper of a hell; his countenance immovable, except when it relaxed, as he replied courteously to any one who addressed him. “He is dead, so is one of the croupiers, so are half the players, old and young, whom I first saw at the table twenty years ago, when, for the first time, I was initiated into the mysteries of hazard, how to dash down a ten, or dribble a four, as if, really, there was skill about a game which consists in rattling two dice in a box, and winning, or losing by the points they declare when rolled out on the table.” We have seen how disreputable the Turf had become in 1844. If anything, it became worse. A class of men sprung up, called “tipsters,” men who pretended to have exclusive and particular stable information which they were willing to impart to their dupes, say (to quote the advertisement of one of the fraternity), Single events, 3s. 6d. Derby or Oaks, 5s. each: yearly subscription, 21s.; half yearly, 10s. 6d. That these men made a profitable business of it, there can be no doubt, for the sporting papers were full of their advertisements, some of them of great length: and, then, also began that curse attending horse racing, the betting shop—which afforded a fatal facility to all classes, to gamble, and which led to crime, and its attendant punishment.