CHAPTER XVL 

 The Greatest Plungers* 



Ever since there has been betting in the world there 

 have been plungers, as the outside world calls them men 

 who were not afraid to take a chance and bet their money. 

 A peculiarity of the matter is that the majority of them have 

 been gentlemen, and there was scarcely a one who did not 

 have a first-class education. Of course, there are excep- 

 tions, but they were few and far between. 



Pre-emiment among them was the late Col. W. R. John- 

 son. He was a man who stood among his fellows as a tall 

 blade of grass in a barren field. There was not a man who 

 ever met him but was convinced of the superiority of his 

 worth. He came of one of the best families in the South, 

 was always noted for his sterling probity, and the whole 

 Southern and Northern world worshiped at his shrine. 



Suave of manner, an amusing entertainer, gentle of 

 deportment, ready to resent an insult, and a man of the old 

 school, where every man's rights must be respected, he stood 

 the highest among the high and mighty of his day. There 

 is no turfman of the present day but will take off his hat to 

 the memory of such a man. 



Yet Col. Johnson was one of the greatest plungers of his 

 time, and, by the way, there has been no man up to this date 

 who has excelled him in those qualities which go to make 

 up a plunger. He sometimes wagered as much as $75,000 

 on a single race, and whether he won or whether he lost it 

 was not perceptible in his manner. There are few such men 

 in the world, and it has been often said of him that " nature 

 broke the mold/' Born in Virginia, he inherited all that 

 rich strain of Southern blood that believes in giving to every 

 man his rights and exacting from every man his own meed. 

 It was Col. Johnson who made all the great matches of the 

 ancient times, and it was his active mind that brought about 

 the contests between the North and South, where for the 

 most part the natives of his own section were successful. 



