FAMOUS WAGERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17823, 3 January 1920, Page 8

FAMOUS WAGERS

STRANGE OLD-TIME CONTESTS.

The amazing sporting and wagering proclivities of our grandfathers and great grandfathers were the other day recalled by the sale in a London auction room of a portrait and other remarkable documents relating to a very eccentric character, known in the early years of last century as the "Wandering Piner." This strange individual was the son of Sir Joshua Stewart. After righting at Waterloo, he entered into a wager of £5000 with a certain Count Bender, a schoolfellow in Scotland, that in order to test Ihe hospitality of various countries, they should proceed in disguise, the piper through Great Britain and the- Count fiddling his way through i'rance and Belgium. The campaign was to have lasted three years, but the Count gave up the contest, having only collected £340, as against the Scotsman's £7000 in England alone.

The closing years of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth were notorious for the extraordinary wagers indulged in by our sporting forebears. At certain famous clubs every incident was made the subject of a wager, and thousands of pounds changedhands over the veriest trifle. George Selwyn, who knew something about the business, used to declare that there was in the heavens above, or the earth below, or in the waters under the earth, upon which these men could not contrive to bet, and this craze led many a noble family to ruin. Who, for instance, would nowadays bet anything between five and a hundred guineas as to the number of his friend's children and the date of their arrival? Yet- there are literally hundreds of these wagers solemnly recorded in the Betting Book of White's, together with others dealing with almost every conceivable subject. One of the less common type relates to a gentleman, presumably embarrassed, concerning whom bet is recorded that he "does not from necessity part with his gold ice-pails before this day 12 month." Another concerns a certain baronet who6e financial circumstances formed the subject of a wager between Lord Alvanley and Sir Joseph Coplay. "If he is observed," so runs the Betting Book, "to borrow small change of the chairman or waiters Sir Joseph is to be reckoned to lose." Again the course of contemporary history may be traced in such entries in the Betting Book as—"Mr Butler bets Sir George Talbot 20 guineas to one that he is not in the room at White's with Napoleon in the course of the next two vears—April 24, 1815. ■> — Life or Death Bet.—

On one occasion a man dropped down at the door of White's, and he was carried into the house. Was he dead. Betting commenced, and the odds were taken for and against. Some, who had staked hundreds on the man being dead, pro-, tested when their opponents desired to bleed the unconscious object of these wagers. They argued that the use of tho lance would affect the fairness of the bet. Thus these gentlemen gravely argued the pros and cons affecting their foolish wagers. . Of all odd however, that Duke of Queensberry, who was notorious as "Old Q," was probably the father of the most remarkable, in days when horses alone were more than sufficient to sate the gambling energies of our forefathers. No one was as clever as he at making matches on the turf, whether, as Lord March, he rode himself or not; and his famous bet (in which Lord Eglinton was his associate) with Count, Taaffe and Mr Andrew Sprowle showed that he understood horses in harness just as vrell. The terms of the wager were that Count Taaffe and his friend betted Lord March and- Eglinton ono thousand guineas that they could not provide a four-wU-efed carriage to carry a man and be drawn bv four horses 19 miles in an hour. The duke, as it is simpler to call him, took an infinity of trouble over his task, trying horse after horse, and carriage after carriage. Wright, of Long Acre, was finally the happy man whose handiwork was selected. This was a horse-breaker's brake without the usual high perch, having oil cans fixed to the boxes of the wheels, and the pole and bars made of thin wood lapped with wire to strengthen them, The springs were of steel and the harness of silk and whalebone, and the total weight some two and a-half hundredweight. On August 29, 1750, the carriage with its four chosen horses and postilions took the field at Newmarket before an immense crowd of spectators, among whom a course was cleared by a horseman resplendent in red velvet. In the result the duke's judgment was thoroughly vindicated, for tho horses, fairly running away with the riders, actually covered the first four miles in nine minutes and the total distance in six minutes and 33 seconds under the hour.

The duke's next successful venture was in a curious competition in which he made a remarkable use of professional cricketers. His bet was that he would cause a letter to be conveyed 50 mjles in an honr, a feat that, in "those days, sounded no doubt impossible enough to those unfortunate persons who took the bet. Not so, however, to His Grace, who enclosed the message in a cricket ball and then stationed a number of noted cricketers at fixed intervals. The ball was then thrown from' man to man, and covered by this method many miles over the required 50. —Geese versus Turkeys.—

But old-time competitors and wagermakera beat modern ones hollow for originality and eccentricity. For instance, Horace Walpole's brother, Lord Orford, once backed a drove of geese to race an equal number of turkeys from Norwich to London. He won the bet, for the geese kept on the road all the time and were steady goers. The turkeys, when darkness came on, flew to the trees to roost by the roadside, from which their drovers had a hard task to dislodge them. The turkeys arrived in town two days after the geese. Sir, John Laide once wagered to carry Lord Cholmondeley at Brighton puck-a-the Steyne. As Sir John was small and the Earl a giant in 6tature, the event drew a large crowd. All was ready when Sir John remarked that it was time for his Lordship to strip. His Lordship gasped, "I engaged to carry you, but not an. inch of clothes," repeated Sir John; "so hurry up, my Lord, make ready, and do not let us disappoint the crowd. ' But the crowd was disappointed, for his Lordship stoutly refused to take off his clothes puck fashion from the Pavilion twice round and Sir John pocketed the stakes. In January, 1821, when 97 years old, Mr Huddy, who was the postmaster of Lir'.nnre, made a wager that he would travel from Lismore to Fermoy in a Dungaivan tub drawn by a pig, two cats, a goose, and a hedgehog. Ho wore on his head a large red night-cap, and carried a pig drover's whip in one hand, and in the other a big cow's horn, which he blew to encourage his team and to give notice of the arrival of the Royal Mail!

Just three years before the foregoing, Baron Osten, of the 16th Lancers, won a ourious wager in Lord Chariemont's park. A hundred stones were placed on the ground with a yard between each; the Baron rode up to each, dismounted, picked it up, rode back to a basket, dismounted again, and put in the stone, and rode off for the next. He did them all in three-quarters of an hour. Much the same thing was donei by a clever Devonshire man, who wagered that he would lay out a hundred stones,, each a yard from its neighbour, and put them all together back in one spot- within thirtyfive minutes, on foot.. A knowledge of Baron Osten's feat availed the layers nothing, for the crafty West countryman laid out the stones in a circle, and had them all in a heap in the middle in eighteen minutes. In Scotland feats of muscular strength used to be particularly popular. The lifting of heavy weights, the wrestling of strong men together, the tearing of packs of cards, the splitting of wood by the hands were feats that excited great interest and caused considerable wagering of money. — Bullock Foiled by Fist.— On one occasion enormous interest was produced in the Border towns by tho public declaration of a man named a painter, belonging to Kelso, that h<? would fell a bullcck with thrc° blows of his fist.. He was i-eputed to be

a strong man, although of slender bnild, but few thought his promise possible of fulfilment. When the day came there wero thousands gathered to witness the trial of strength and enthusiasm knew no bounds when the animal fell at the second blow of his fist.

l'edestrianism had many ardent devotees in these days, such as Captain Robert Barclay, one of the earliest advocates of something lik e scientific training. He won his first wager when ho was only 17 by walking six miles within the hour.on the Croydon road. Five years later this hardy younp- Scot bet. Mr Fletcher £5000 that he would go 90 miles on foot in successive hours. He began at midnight at' Ay ton, on the road to Hull, which was well lighted by lamps, and walked a mile out and back until he finished his task at 22 minutes past eight in the evening, with an hour to spare. When ho was 30, and weighing just under 13 stone, he did considerably better, covering 1000 miles in 1000 consecutive hours on grass that had been cut *and rolled.

As a matter of unprepared and genuine strength, Sir Andrew Leith Hay's wag-er with Lord Kennedy will always stand high, for Sir.Andrew bet £2500 that he would get first on foot to Inverness from Blackhall in Kincardineshire, where a large party of sportsmen were just having dinner with Mr Farquharson. At nine that very night, in evening dress, with thin shoes and silk stockings, Lord Kennedy, acompanied by Captain Ross, struck straight across the Grampians. It rained till morning. It rained all day. It rained all the next night. At six the following morning they reached Inverness four hours before Sir Andrew, who had taken the coach road, by way of Huntly and Elgin. — Which was thu Uglier —

This •Captain Ross was the same man who bet Mr George Foljambe £60 that he would shoot ten brace of swallows with a pistol and single ball in one day, and won the wager before breakfast. Lord Kennedy was also famous for another bet with a Mr Ornickshank of £500 a hole, for three holes, at golf, at half-past ten at night, one lantern to be placed on the hole, the other to be carried by the caddie, and no more allowed. Boys were on the course to track the balls, and Lord Kennedy won, with the usual score he made in daylight. Nothing- was too trivial—or too serious —for betting in those days. There is a true story concerning Heidegger, Master of the Revels to George 11., whose ugliness, it was said, could not be surpassed. Wagers were made on the point. After the slums of London had been searched from one end to another, an old woman was found who seemed to be, more ugly than the Master of the Revels. The judges were reluctantly bound to admit that Heidegger had met his match, until it was suggested that he should put on the old woman's bonnet. But this caused him to appear so much uglier than the old woman that he was unanimously delared to be the extreme champion of extreme ugliness. When George IV. was Prince Regent he made a wager with Sheridan that when opening Parliament he would work in any interpolation he liked without it being detected; and the foolish bet being accepted, it was agreed to introduce the words "Baa, baa, black sheep!" in the very middle of his speech from the Throne. "And if anyone smiles or looks startled, I lose my bet," the Prince remarked.

Strange, incredible indeed, as it may seem in these strenuous political days, he did not lose his bet. The ridiculous exploit came off as planned. At the close of a more or less weightly allusion to Wellesley's campaign in Spain, the Royal gagger cleared his throat, and said : — "Baa, baa, black sheen!" and went on without exciting remark. ! —J. H. Young in the Weekly Scotsman.