CAUSE OF DETERIORATION 57 



bred from. Would it be any wonder if the thorough- 

 bred should be deteriorating in rapidly increasing 

 progression ? Indeed, the more screws there are 

 in the world outside the select blue-ribbon few, the 

 more valuable those select few become, because the 

 more certain to win races. The more valuable the 

 select few become, the more, of course, is the general 

 breeder driven back upon the failures. 



The consequence of all this racing and gambling 

 has been that racing men, betting men, horsey 

 ' swells,' ' the girl of the period,' and the rising 

 generation of young men and maidens, all preach 

 racing and make the Stud-Book their study, and 

 most of them have practised gambling on races, so 

 that nobody has been left to say a word for any- 

 thing but the sprinter. A screw on a leg and a 

 half, cow-hocked, spavined and a roarer, has been 

 magnified by the ' ten-dollar amateur ' of the London 

 Times as something supernatural because he is 

 entered in the Stud-Book, and for no other reason, 

 albeit that that book itself is an authority for the 

 fact that, in Australia at least, many of them are not 

 worthy of entry. How many are ? Sickly quadrupeds 

 who ought to go to the knackers are worshipped and 

 admired because they are called thoroughbreds, and 

 are used by the thoughtless and the ignorant to 

 the discomfiture of all who wish to see good and 

 useful horses. A farmer will pay thirty shillings for 

 the use of a legless bag of bones under the name 

 of a thoroughbred because he has been taught all 



