90 About Betting and Gambling, 



credulous and inexperienced that rogues and scoundrels 

 have grown up round it for a century past, though, thank 

 Heaven, there are plenty of honest owners, and trainers, 

 and jockeys left still. It is seventy years since Dawson was 

 hung at Cambridge for poisoning racers, and the careful 

 reader of " Doctor Syntax " will remember Rowlandson's 

 picture of the Doctor's horror at seeing the favourite, which 

 he backed, " roped " at York races. The scratching of the 

 horse has become so common that nothing is thought of it 

 now; it is sometimes, doubtless, an open swindle, but it 

 cannot be proved or punished. 



And now, my dear youngsters, to whom life is somewhat 

 easy, let me say a word to you who have good expectations 

 and a liberal allowance, and who, according to conventional 

 expression, were born to life and a curricle. Let me take 

 one of you, and imagine that you are the last joined officer, 

 looking out- of the mess-room window of the cavalry bar- 

 racks. You have left school only a year, and here you are 

 "with your red scarlet coat, as proud as a goat with your 

 feathers so fine " (though, by-the-bye, the chances are the 

 coat would be blue), as Mickey Free sung. You are in 

 rather a fast regiment with an allowance of five hundred a 

 year and heir to a good property (if the people's William 

 does not abolish the possibility of such a glorious inherit- 

 ance) ; your uniform, board, horses, regimental expenses, 

 and other claims, will pull hard against that five hundred 

 and your pay. With plenty of leisure and a love of sport 

 you will probably get a little hunting, shooting, fishing, and 

 of course some garrison racing, and any amount of good 

 society, and your daily life and surroundings as regards 

 comfort do not cost you a third of what people pay at a 

 club. Do rest and be thankful, and turn your back on real 

 gambling and betting, and, above all, avoid a book on the 

 Derby. What on earth can you know about it, except 



