c.' Other names
quickly followed, and it soon assumed an importance. Advertisements
appeared in all the sporting and would-be sporting papers, headed with the
imposing names of the stewards, secretary, and clerk of the course, Mr.
Viney. The 'Grand Aristocratic Stakes,' of 20 sovs. each, half-forfeit, and
L5 only if declared, &c. The winner to give two dozen of champagne to the
ordinary, and the second horse to save his stake. Gentlemen riders (titled
ones to be allowed 3 lb.). Over about three miles of fine hunting country,
under the usual steeple-chase conditions.

Then the game of the 'Peeping Toms,' and 'Sly Sams,' and 'Infallible Joes,'
and 'Wideawake Jems,' with their tips and distribution of prints began; Tom
counselling his numerous and daily increasing clients to get well on to No.
9, Sardanapalus (the Bart., as Watchorn called him), while 'Infallible Joe'
recommended his friends and patrons to be sweet on No. 6 (Hercules), and
'Wide-awake Jem' was all for something else. A gentleman who took the
trouble of getting tips from half a dozen of them, found that no two of
them agreed in any particular. What information to make books upon!

'But what good,' as our excellent friend Thackeray eloquently asks, 'ever
came out of, or went into, a betting book? If I could be CALIPH
OMAR for a week,' says he, 'I would pitch every one of those
despicable manuscripts into the flames; from my-lord's, who is "in" with
Jack Snaffle's stable, and is overreaching worse-informed rogues, and
swindling greenhorns, down to Sam's, the butcher's boy, who books
eighteen-penny odds in the tap-room, and stands to win five-and-twenty
bob.' We say ditto to that, and are not sure that we wouldn't hang a 'leg'
or a 'list' man or two into the bargain.

Watchorn had a prophet of his own, one Enoch Wriggle, who, having tried his
hand unsuccessfully first at tailoring, next as an accountant, then in the
watercress, afterwards in the buy ''at-box, bonnet-box,' and lastly in the
stale lobster and periwinkle line, had set up as an oracle on turf matters,
forwarding the most accurate and infallible information to flats in
exchange for half-crowns, heading his advertisements, 'If it be a sin to
covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive!' Enoch did a considerable
stroke of business, and couched his advice in such dubious terms, as
generally to be able to claim a victory whichever way the thing went. So
the 'offending soul' prospered; and from sc