ournals are of course bought by the gudgeons who seek
destruction in the betting-rooms. In the provinces there are several
towns which easily support a daily sporting journal; and no ordinary
paper in the North of England could possibly survive unless at least
one-eighth of its space were devoted to racing matters of various sorts.
There are hundreds of thousands of our population who read absolutely
nothing save lists of weights and entries, quotations which give the
odds against horses, and reports of races. Not 5 per cent, of these
individuals ever see a horse from year's end to year's end, yet they
talk of nothing else but horses, horses, horses, and every effort of
their intellects is devoted to the task of picking out winners.
Incredible as it may seem, these poor souls call themselves sportsmen,
and they undoubtedly think that their grubbing about in malodorous
tap-rooms is a form of "sport"; it is their hopeless folly and greed
that fill the pockets of the loud-mouthed tenants of the Ring. Some one
must supply the bookmakers' wealth, and the "some one" is the senseless
amateur who takes his ideas from newspapers. The amateur of the tap-room
or the club looks down a list of horses and chooses one which he
fancies; perhaps he has received private advice from one of the beings
who haunt the training-grounds and watch the thoroughbreds at exercise;
perhaps he is influenced by some enthusiast who bids him risk all he has
on certain private information. The fly enters the den and asks the
spider, "What price Flora?"--that means, "What odds are you prepared to
lay against the mare named Flora?" The spider answers--say seven to one;
the fly hands one pound to the spider, and the bet is made. The
peculiarity of this transaction is that one of the parties to it is
always careful to arrange so that he cannot lose. Supposing that there
are seven horses entered in a race, it is certain that six must be
losers. The bookmaker so makes his wagers that no matter which of the
seven wins he at least loses nothing; the miserable amateur has only one
chance. He may possibly be lucky; but the chances in the long run are
dead against him, for he is quite at the mercy of the sharp capitalist
who bets with him. The money which the rowdies of the Ring spend so
lavishly all comes from the pockets of dupes who persist in pursuing a
kind of _ignis fatuus_ which too often leads them into a bog of ruin.

This deplorable business of wagering ha