88 



BETTING. 



bet of more than ten pounds the loser was en- 

 titled to recover the amount if he had paid it, 

 and if he did not do so within three months, 

 any one might sue him for three times the 

 amount, with costs. This act was long a dead 

 letter, but was unearthed for some purpose in 

 1844, and subsequently annulled by the Gam- 

 ing Act (8 and 9 Viet.). Unfortunately as it 

 seems, the annulment of this act was closely 

 coincident with an enormous increase in bet- 

 ting on horse-races. "List shops" were opened, 

 where any one could stake money in advance 

 on any horse, and so many acts of dishonesty 

 were perpetrated that the Betting Houses Act 

 (16 and 17 Viet.) was introduced by Sir Alex- 

 ander Cockburn, afterward Lord Chief-Justice 

 of England, and by him carried successfully 

 through Parliament. This act suppressed all 

 permanent places kept expressly for betting 

 purposes, the object being to remove obtrusive 

 temptation from the daily walks of the multi- 

 tude, who were the easiest prey of swindlers. 

 The act applied only to England, and one re- 

 sult was that Scotland soon became a head- 

 quarters for the professional swindlers of the 

 United Kingdom. In due time, however, the 

 provisions of the act were extended to Scot- 

 land, and the evils arising from established 

 and permanent betting-places were largely di- 

 minished. This act, carefully prepared by 

 George Anderson, of Glasgow, went into effect 

 in July, 1874, upon which the Scottish betting- 

 agents closed their establishments and moved 

 to Boulogne, where a thriving business was 

 carried on by mail and otherwise, until the 

 evil results became so manifest that the French 

 Government in turn interfered, and the agents 

 were driven to new devices. So successful are 

 they, however, in evading the law, that it is 

 estimated that about 5,000,000 changes hands 

 every year on the results of horse-racing alone. 

 In England, legislation appears to discrimi- 

 nate between what is termed ''ready-money" 

 betting and betting on credit, the former being 

 made illegal, while the latter is not so specified. 

 One result has been that among the poorer 

 classes small clubs have been formed, where 

 betting is carried on upon credit, just as it is 

 among the wealthy at their palatial club-houses. 

 Bets of honor, these are called, and when a 

 "gentleman" or a "nobleman" loses, he will 

 go to any extreme to meet his obligations on the 

 Monday following ; repeatedly have men mort- 

 gaged their lands and pawned their wives' 

 jewels in order to escape the disgrace that 

 would follow the non-payment of such an ob- 

 ligation. It has therefore been held that it 

 would be better, if possible, to place restric- 

 tions upon betting on credit, rather than upon 

 betting with ready money, since the credit sys- 

 tem permits the bettor to incur any number of 

 liabilities for almost any period of time, in ad- 

 vance. He loses, let us say, on the first event, 

 but hope bids him strain every nerve to meet 

 his obligations, for may he not win on the sec- 

 ond ? If all betting transactions involved cash 



in hand and a stake-holder, it would seem that 

 the incitement to great sacrifices of real prop- 

 erty under stress of emergency would be large- 

 ly wanting. 



It is a noteworthy feature of betting trans- 

 actions that no legal documents or contracts 

 are in use. Millions of dollars and hundreds 

 of thousands of pounds change hands every 

 year on the strength of a memorandum pen- 

 ciled in a note-book at the time of making the 

 bet. All betting is conducted, as the phrase 

 goes, " upon honor," and, considering the mag- 

 nitude of the transactions, it is certainly re- 

 markable how few are the failures to pay. 



Whether it is possible wholly or even par- 

 tially to restrict betting, is a question that can 

 be argued on both sides, with little hope of set- 

 tlement. That the practice is demoralizing in 

 the extreme is unquestionable. 



A professional sharper is said to have sum- 

 marized the case as follows, when asked how 

 he made his calling pay : " It follows by a law 

 of Nature," said he. "We are told that there 

 is a child born into this world every second, 

 and therefore there must be a daily addition of 

 more than five millions to the population of 

 the globe. Now, the deuce is in it if, with 

 this continual rising of fresh spooney s to .the 

 surface of society, I can not come across as 

 many as will serve my turn." 



It is this class of professional sharpers that 

 is most harmful to the community, and any 

 reasonable legislation looking to restraining 

 their proceedings would be welcomed by all 

 the law-abiding classes. The making of pri- 

 vate bets can probably be prevented or re- 

 strained only by promoting a sentiment against 

 it; but it would seem possible and desirable to 

 prohibit public betting, and especially to ren- 

 der betting on elections dangerous as well as 

 disreputable. 



The talk of racing and betting men abounds 

 in slang phrases, many of which, as used in 

 England, are not understood by Americans. 

 As they are frequently encountered in English 

 novels, a few definitions are appended. A 

 " dollar," in betting parlance, means five shil- 

 lings ; a " quid " is a pound sterling ; " fivers " 

 and "tenners" are respectively five- and ten- 

 pound notes ; a " pony " is twenty-five pounds ; 

 a "century" is one hundred pounds; and a 

 "monkey" is five hundred pounds: a "thou" 

 is the recognized abbreviation of thousand. 

 " A stiff 'un " or a " dead 'nn " is a horse that 

 has been entered for a race, but will not com- 

 pete ; " skinning the lamb " means that the 

 book-maker has not bet against the winning 

 horse. " Hedging," in its simplest meaning, 

 implies that a bettor having made his bet, be- 

 comes fearful of losing, and bets the other 

 way, so as to make the accounts balance as 

 nearly as may be. A more elaborate defini- 

 tion is given as follows by an English writer: 

 " Suppose that a betting man backs a particu- 

 lar horse for a certain race before the entries 

 are due, and that the horse is entered, favor- 



