UPON JOCKE YS. 247 



jockeys of the day with temptations to which their prede- 

 cessors were strangers. For reasons w^hich partly defy human 

 analysis, but are in the main attributable to the universal 

 diffusion of railways and electric wires, there has during the 

 last twenty years been such a shrinkage of speculation upon 

 future events, that it has become altogether impossible to 

 land the heavy stakes by betting which were so familiar to 

 men like the late General Anson and Sir Joseph Hawley, 

 or even to living patrons of the Turf like Mr. Chaplin 

 and Captain Machell. The natural result is that finessing 

 and trick, to an extent heretofore unknown, are imposed 

 upon owners of horses who desire to back their favourites for 

 heavy sums. In their anxiety to anticipate the forestallers who, 

 without even leaving the metropolis, await the ticking of the 

 tape in the Strand, in Wellington and Fleet Streets, and in almost 

 every public-house in the heart of London, Manchester, Liver- 

 pool, Leeds, Glasgow, Dublin, and every great provincial town, 

 the rightful backers of horses belonging to them are too often 

 forced to resort to artifices which were wholly unnecessary when 

 the powerful stables at Whitewall, Danebury, and Middleham 

 w^ere in their prime. It goes without saying that to render 

 these artifices successful, the intervention and assistance of 

 jockeys are frequently invoked by their masters, and sometimes 

 by others who are secretly in league with the crack riders of the 

 day. The oft-repeated fulminations of the Stewards of the 

 Jockey Club against betting jockeys, and against the dangerous 

 practice of their receiving handsome presents from men who 

 are not their masters, are, we fear, neither more nor less than idle 

 threats. As a necessary consequence, the ' consummate artists ' of 

 the pigskin enjoy an immunity from the control and supervision 

 w^hich rendered their predecessors more amenable to the 

 direct influence of the noblemen and gentlemen whose colours 

 they wore. The mischief — and a very grave and dangerous 

 mischief it is — has now attained its highest proportions, and, 

 more than any other cloud hovering upon its horizon, it is 



