Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE BETTING RING. " Dost trifle in the Ring ? " Old Play. (]OWEVER strange and interesting may be the " subjects" which delight the eyes of the St. George's student in the Anatomical Museum, the lover of morbid anatomy may find an equally rich field of contemplation if he will walk a little farther down the lane at TattersalTs, and scan the alphabet of faces who congregate in and round the Rooms. He will there, amid that hoarse and multifarious miscellany of men, and under exteriors which are at times unpromising, find as clear cutting wits as ever nestled in a brain-pan, and he can only regret, as he sits on that strange "bench of the grand-world school," that men who were framed for better things should be so Unitarian in their devotion to the odds. The room, which bears silent witness to these ceaseless flirtations with the goddess Fortune, is 45 by 28 feet, and capable of holding about 400 persons. In the middle of it is a sort of circular counter, round which and at the fireplace the business is principally transacted; but in summer the room is nearly deserted, and speculation adjourns on to the steps and green, outside, and holds communication with its less favoured votaries through the iron bars of the gate. At present, although the numbers fluctuate considerably, the Room has about as many subscribers as it can hold: a great increase on the number who adjourned there in Attila's year, from their small trysting place lower down the lane. Candidates are elected by the committee of the Boom; they must find a nominator and a seconder, and the names must be up for at least a month. Above the fireplace at the end of the room is a painting of Eclipse, from the easel of the grandfather of the present Mr. Garrard (whose oxydized silver race cups are not fav...