ation of expedients or arrangements--in a
word, jockeying, that is, cheating, tricking. The only 'moral' character
required in the jockey is the determination to do whatsoever may be
agreed upon or determined by those who are willing and able to give 'a
consideration' for the convenient accommodation.

But it is, or was, the associations, the inevitable concomitants, of the
turf and racing that stamp it, not only as something questionable,
but as a bane and infamy to the nation; and if there is one spot more
eminently distinguished for a general rendezvous of fraud and gambling,
that place is Newmarket.

The diversions of these plains have proved a decoy to many a noble
and ingenuous mind, caught in the snares laid to entrap youth and
inexperience. Newmarket was a wily labyrinth of loss and gain, a
fruitful field for the display of gambling abilities, the school of the
sharping crew, the academy of the Greeks, the unfathomable gulf that
absorbed princely fortunes.

The amusements of the turf were in all other places intermixed with a
variety of social diversions, which were calculated to promote innocent
mirth and gaiety. The breakfastings, the concerts, the plays, the
assemblies, attracted the circle of female beauty, enlivened the scene,
engaged the attention of gentlemen, and thus prevented much of the evil
contagion and destruction of midnight play. But encouragement to the
GAMBLER of high and low degree was the very charter of Newmarket.
Every object that met the eye was encompassed with gambling--from the
aristocratic Rouge et Noir, Roulette, and Hazard, down to Thimble-rig,
Tossing, and Tommy Dodd. Every hour of the day and night was beset with
gambling diversified; in short, gambling must occupy the whole man, or
he was lost to the sport and spirit of the place. The inhumanity of
the cock-pit, the iniquitous vortex of the Hazard table, employed each
leisure moment from the race, and either swallowed up the emoluments
of the victorious field, or sank the jockey still deeper in the gulf of
ruin.

The common people of England have been stigmatized (and perhaps
too justly) for their love of bloody sports and cruel diversions;
cock-fighting, bull-baiting, boxing, and the crowded attendance on
executions, are but too many proofs of this sanguinary turn. But why
the imputation should lie at the door of the vulgar alone may well be
questioned; for while the star of nobility and dignified distinction
was seen to gli