They have either exceeded or fallen short of the description I had heard of them.
I was prepared, both from what I was told by Mr.Slick, and heard, from others, to find that there were but very few gentlemen-like looking men there; and that by far the greater number neither were, nor affected to be, any thing but "knowing ones." I was led to believe that there would be a plentiful use of the terms _of art_, a variety of provincial accent, and that the conversation of the jockeys and grooms would be liberally garnished with appropriate slang.
The gentry portion of the throng, with some few exceptions, it was said, wore a dissipated look, and had that peculiar appearance of incipient disease, that indicates a life of late hours, of excitement, and bodily exhaustion.

Lower down in the scale of life, I was informed, intemperance had left its indelible marks.

And that still further down, were to be found the worthless lees of this foul and polluted stream of sporting gentlemen, spendthrifts, gamblers, bankrupts, sots, sharpers and jockeys.
This was by no means the case.

It was just what a man might have expected to have found a great sporting exchange and auction mart, of horses and carriages, to have been, in a great city like London, had he been merely told that such was the object of the place, and then left to imagine the scene.

It was, as I have before said, a mixed and motley crowd; and must necessarily be so, where agents attend to bid for their principals, where servants are in waiting upon their masters, and above all, where the ingress is open to every one.
It is, however, unquestionably the resort of gentlemen.