serious business of racing, until the innovation
of excursion trains brought down a few cockneys,
might be seen, not long since, a young nobleman,
little past his majority, with ready money
in six figures, and estates in the counties, moved
almost to tears at the loss of a thousand pounds,
risked on the private secret information of one
of the dear friends who surround such deep-
woolled sheep. A thousand pounds to this
young gentleman represents something less than
five pounds to the earner of five hundred a year.

We have ourselves seen the great Baron
Bullion, whose words can make emperors flinch,
led away almost hysterical by his humbling
toadies when his favourite colt Contango ran all
behind for that blue riband of the turf the
Chalk Down stakes.

In a word, if you would see the proudest and
the wealthiest brought down to a level with the
meanest and the neediest, watch the aspect of
the betting ring before and after a great race.
In the height of the excitement of winning a
great race, a duke has been known to accept the
congratulations and shake the hands of a
burglarious cat's-meat dealer.

The solemn festivals—the "settling" days
after great races—at that methodist-chapel-
looking building between Tattersall's sale-yard
and the cows' grass-plot, where bank-notes are
carried by sheaves, and wafted about like waste
paper, bring to a crucial test the one virtue
essential for standing on the first line—the
grenadiers of the guard of turf men—
payment prompt payment. You may be a
fraudulent bankrupt, a pickpocket, a forger, free
by a flaw in the indictment; you may be
guilty of the foulest crimes, or notorious for the
basest propensities; but, so long as you pay,
you will be admitted freely to the subscription-
rooms, and the betting rings. You are sure of the
familiar if not friendly companionship of your
fellow-professionals, and you may probably find
yourself honoured with some playful nickname,
descriptive of your peculiar rascality. Palmer,
who never entered the London betting mart, had
acquired, long before his detection, the sobriquet
among his fraternity, implying his propensity for
"dosing"—that was the mild word.

Extremes meet on the turf, and part, too; the
lowest rise and the highest fall; Boots becomes
a squire; an earl's son becomes a felon. The old
adage that hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to
virtue, is to be seen worked out in the gradual
approach to forms and practices of respectability,
to an imitation of the habits of more scrupulous
men, in the closing day of the career of a
successful turfman, who, secure in his hundred or
two hundred thousand pounds, abandons the
ways of his youth, and sets himself down to
found a family. He buys an estate, or two,
or three; he builds a church; he subscribes
splendidly to charities; he has the best shooting
in the county, and the best people he
can get to shoot over it; he is easy with his
debtors of good family, and prepared with
ready money to lend, on good security; he
marries his daughters to clergymen, and provides
the husbands with benefices. And thus with
quiet manners our blackleg adventurer gets
on, until people of the money-worshipping sect
begin to say that really Mr. Crossit is a very
decent, respectable man. And yet there is
scarcely one of these millionnaires whose life
would bear investigation, whose turning-point
of success will not be found to rest on some
"famous robbery."

It would be rather curious to see our noblemen,
our gentlemen, our squires, our military
heroes, the soul of honour and pink of gentility,
men proud of their position and their pedigree,
parsons, doctors, lawyers, booking bets, bandying
jests, and exchanging compliments with an
ex-pickpocket, who, after having been ducked in
divers horse-ponds and cropped in many gaols
for petty larcenies, has abandoned a pursuit
unworthy of his genius, now has his town house
and country mansion, and a string of race-
horses whose losings pay him quite as well as
their winnings. A race-dinner of the present
day is a fine sight: the ex-pickpocket's health
is proposed by Major Malachi O'Donohue, lineal
descendant of the kings of Ireland; and, close
beside, might sit bobbing and nobbing, planning
future and rejoicing in past robberies, prize-
fighting publicans, ex-grooms, ex-shoeblacks, and
ex-waiters, all prosperous, luxurious, dressed
by the best tailors, jewellers, and bootmakers,
all paying, and, therefore, all jostling on terms
of perfect equality, seeking some private
information, some secret advantage, all living
and struggling in the hope of getting the best
of each other. For the essential distinction
between trade and gambling is, that in trade both
parties may profit, in gambling one must lose.

On the Stock Exchange, there is a legitimate
business to be done, there are tangible securities
to transfer, which afford a legitimate science
to men of high character and honour. On the
turf, a small army, whose natural talents for
roguery have been sharpened by long experience,
thrive on folly. Every year produces its
crop of recruits, and of victims, the greater
number obscure. But every now and then a
great light breaks in. Four or five years
ago, the handsomest, the haughtiest, the
boldest member of the turf was a man of
noble family, of literary and social
accomplishments above the average, to whom, by
ability as well as by position, high office was open.
As to his means, who limits the means of a
great peer's son? It was known that he betted
largely, borrowed largely, and paid punctually.
At length the bubble burst; the great gentleman
who, unlike many of his class, never
permitted the slightest familiarity on the part of
his low-born associates, disappeared. There was
a groan of distress from Hebrews calling for
some sixty thousand pounds; Christian bill
discounters claimed a like sum; a wealthy racing
peer, who did not say a word, could have
claimed twenty thousand pounds. Another
peer, who had been, before he took to the turf
trade, one of the wealthiest of his class, found
the result of joint racing speculations in a loss