CAUSE OF DETERIORATION 53 



racing establishments, of ' lovely yearlings ' by cele- 

 brated sprinters, and of the odds and the doubles. 

 Our farmers' sons in Australia, many of them, don't 

 stick to the plough, but look to visiting their best 

 girl on some ' thoroughbred ' whose sire has won a 

 Muggletonian Handicap or whose grandsire was a 

 useless thousand-pounder, ' not worth sixpence.' 



Our collegians of seventeen worship and revere 

 our jockey-boys of fourteen and fifteen and the 

 stable-lads of thirteen who can give them ' a tip.' The 

 knowledge of most of the rising generation as to 

 horses is sucked in from infancy from such sources 

 as this, almost with their mother's milk. It is only 

 natural that they should look upon ' the crooked- 

 legged, deformed brute,' that Mr. Day speaks of, as 

 perfection. I know instances where stable-boys have 

 given ' the tip ' to school-boys, who have given it to 

 their mothers, who have passed it on to the fathers, 

 who have then lost their money on the ' tote.' I 

 was told of one case recently where a child of five 

 was given a shilling to put on the 'tote.' Young 

 ladies — the future mothers — talk of the favourite and 

 the totalizator, and know much more about the 

 double than they do about the Psalms of David, 

 and the housemaid wants to know which horse to 

 back for the Cup. The barmaid becomes a very 

 high authority indeed, and if her ' best boy ' have a 

 relative in a racing-stable, she becomes for a week or 

 two of greater importance and celebrity than Her 

 Excellency the Governor-General's wife. 



