CHAPTERS FROM TURF HISTORY 



to the matter in hand a practical knowledge and 

 debating ability which lose nothing of effect from 

 that salt flavour that comes to younger minds in 

 contact with business affairs. Lord Crewe is in 

 attendance. His part in the discussion must be 

 an easier and more agreeable task than that which 

 he undertakes as an unenvied leader of the House of 

 Lords. Glad indeed must he be to have temporary 

 relief from those Cabinet complications ^ which 

 have turned upon the gambling exploits of his 

 Ministerial colleagues, and to find himself in the 

 purer atmosphere of an assembly which since 

 October 1842 has taken no cognisance of trans- 

 actions in the betting ring. 



There is no playing to the Gallery. There are 

 no lobbying Pressmen. Interruptions, if any, are 

 polite and orderly. At the close of the debate 

 the officials claim urgency and the business is 

 dispatched. The Venetian oligarchs rise from 

 their seats with the feelings of statesmen who 

 have realized their responsibilities, and who, as 

 the Guardians of the Turf, have exercised their 

 extensive and arbitrary powers alike in the best 

 interests of that sport which they regulate, and 

 of that discipline which is vital to its continuance. 



The recent case in which a representative of the 

 yellow section of the Sporting Press was sued for 

 libel by a well-known trainer excited much comment 

 in racing circles. To the particular charges levelled 

 by the defendant against the plaintiff it is un- 

 necessary to refer. The trial itself was a long and 

 pitiful exhibition of personal prejudice and irrele- 

 vancy. The broad result was that the jury found 



' The reference is to the Marconi scandal of that date. 



148 



