213 



SECTION xvir. 



ORIGIN AND CONSEQUENCES OF HORSE-RACING — UNSUBSTANTIAL ARGU- 

 MENTS AGAINST ITS CONTINUANCE GAMES OF CHANCE INTIMATELY 



CONNECTED WITH THE TURF — CRUELTV NOT NECESSARY TO HORSE- 

 RACING — PLACES WHERE CELEBRATED GREATLY INCREASED IN IRE- 



L^YND THE TURF IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES PUBLICATIONS AND RULES 



IN HORSE-RACING THE JOCKEY-CLUB — TATTERSAL's. 



I HAVE already, in the history of the Horse, deduced the origin 

 of horse-racing from the Olympic games of ancient Greece, stating the 

 particulars of difference between the ancient and modern practices, with 

 the use and progress of a regular racing system in this country. This 

 has gradually increased with our increasing national wealth and prospe- 

 rity, to which indeed, it has, in no small degree, contributed, by the 

 improvement of our breed of Horses, to a height of excellence hitherto 

 imattained in any other part of the world. 



It has, at every period, been fashionable with that class of moralists, 

 which is more rigid than correct, to draw arguments from the abuse, 

 against the use of horse-racing ; and as a powerful auxiliary, they have, 

 of late years, advanced the position, that our breed of Horses having re- 

 ceived all tliat improvement of which it is susceptible from the Blood- 

 horse, the farther propagation of the latter, is not only useless, but abso- 

 lutely harmful, as tending to a diminution of the size and strength, in 

 consequence, to the general degeneration of the English breed. But 

 neither our liberal moralists, nor our breeders of Horses, have hitherto 

 appeared disposed to coincide with those logicians, whence horse-racing, 

 instead of being laid aside, is, at the present moment, a diversion equally 

 in favour with the people, as at any former period, and upon a far more 

 extensive scale ; and racing.blood more than ever diffused in the breed 



of English Horses» _ 



^ But 



