y laid and well planned too, but they
shall fail. No, Hinton,' resumed he in a louder tone--'no, Hinton;
believe me, poor man that I am, this is not with me a question of so
many pounds: it is the wounded _amour propre_ of a man who, all through
his life, held out the right hand of fellowship to those very men who
now conspire to be his ruin. And such, my dear boy, such, for the most
part, are the dealings of the turf. I do not mean to say that men
of high honour and unblemished integrity are not foremost in the
encouragement of a sport which, from its bold and manly character,
is essentially an English one; but this I would assert, that probity,
truth, and honour are the gifts of but a very small number of those who
make a traffic of the turf, and are, what the world calls, "racing men."
And oh how very hard the struggle, how nice the difficulty, of him who
makes these men his daily companions, to avoid the many artifices which
the etiquette of the racecourse permits, but which the feelings of a
gentleman would reject as unfair and unworthy! How contaminating that
laxity of principle that admits of every stratagem, every trick, as
legitimate, with the sole proviso that it be successful! And what a
position is it that admits of no alternative save being the dupe or the
blackleg! How hard for the young fellow entering upon life with all the
ardour, all the unsuspecting freshness of youth about him, to stop
short at one without passing on to the other stage! How difficult, with
offended pride and wounded self-love, to find himself the mere tool
of sharpers! How very difficult to check the indignant spirit, that
whispers retaliation by the very arts by which he has been cheated! Is
not such a trial as this too much for any boy of twenty? and is it
not to be feared that, in the estimation he sees those held in whose
blackguardism is their pre-eminence, a perverted ambition to be what is
called a sharp fellow may sap and undermine every honourable feeling
of the heart, break down the barriers of rigid truth and scrupulous
fidelity, teaching him to exult at what formerly he had blushed, and to
recognise no folly so contemptible as that of him who believes the word
of another? Such a career as this has many a one pursued, abandoning
bit by bit every grace, every virtue, and every charm of his character,
that, at the end, he should come forth a "sporting gentleman."'

He paused for a few seconds, and then, turning towards me, ad