The Collapse of Benzon

Feilding Star, Volume X, Issue 60, 27 October 1888, Page 3

The Collapse of Benzon

£500,000 SQUANDERED IN TWO YEARS.

The inevitable end has come at last, and the "Jubilee Juggins" been posted at Tattersals. The King did not give him much quarter. Many men have passed settling days, owing thousands, and the bookies hare not taken action. In Benzon's case they "gibbotted" him promptly for £1400. This would not, it is fair to say, have been so if the " Jubilee" himself had not been personally intensely unpopular. His loud swaggering ways, vicious gibes, and unconcealed contempt for them, made the King hate him. They smiled civily, flattered grossly, and affected to think him " a rare sharp" ; but all the while they were looking forward to the evil day that has now come, and promising themselves sweet revenge. Most people were pretty well aware Benzon was "stone broke" as far back as Sandown. The Leviathans at that meeting closed their books to him " on the nod," and he was driven to betting a few pounds " ready." At Goodwood the Jubilee did not put in an appearance, and after the Brighton meeting Mr Benzon T^as posted. According to all accounts his bones have been picked perfectly clean. Rather more thau two years ago he came of age, and inherited £500,000, the whole of which has nowgone. This, too, though the young fool had by no means bad luck. Mr Fry declares that Benzon's turf transactions alone would not have left him £20,000 to the bad. He made, for example, several big coups this spring. Minting, Ayrshire, and Seabreeze between them won him close upon £50,000, and he also cleared a large sum in Paris at cards. The last time I saw Benzon was in the gallery popularly known as the " Polls' Promenade" at the Empire Theatre. He was staggering, vacuously drunk, and booking childish bets with anyone who would speak to him. Tbe man's ruling passion was a hankering for notoriety, and it regulated all he did. Naturally the worst class of fast youngsters gathered around him. Several kindly elderly men tried long ago to give him advice and put the brake on a bit, but it was not the least use. He flouted rather than thanked them. Benzon's prime ambition, curiously enough, was to be thought a " dead sharp.'' He had ail his Jewish ancestors' cunning, without (unfortunately) any of their brains, or else his passage across the turf firmanent would have been lengthier and n>ore mischievous. — Dunedin Star's London correspondent.