272 RACING. 



perfectly legal ground that there was no run for the money ! 

 In practice the backers continue to pay and the ring to look 

 pleasant, but were a case referred to the tribunals, the book- 

 makers would not have a leg to stand on. 



Take again betting on the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire 

 before the weights are published. It is said that the backing 

 of horses for these two races begins soon after Ascot, and the 

 double-event betting certainly begins as soon as the entries are 

 published, though the weights do not appear before the middle 

 of September ; yet do we ever hear of the repudiation of bets 

 on account of a crushing weight allotted to a too early favourite, 

 or even in case of non-acceptance ? If to ' suffer and be 

 strong ' is a moral purification, of a truth the premature backer 

 on the big handicaps must be as one seven times passed 

 through the fire. 



Who does win all the money on the Turf? is a question 

 which constantly suggests itself to the curious, and is asked 

 even by many who have had some experience in its mysteries. 



The ring, undoubtedly at first hand — into their pockets 

 flows the perennial stream of the savings, the stealings, or the 

 superfluities of the backing million, and thence parca ina?iu 

 some portion is distributed amongst those whose acuteness, 

 perseverance, industry, and mayhap dishonesty, enable them 

 successfully to cope with what is almost an arithmetical 

 certainty. Floreat Scieiitia. 



In the autumn of the year 1892 Mr. Fry, one of the leading 

 bookmakers, acting, it was supposed, on behalf of a large 

 number of his professional brethren, sought audience of the 

 stewards of the Jockey Club— Mr Houldsworth, Lord Durham 

 and Lord March (the latter for the third time) being then in 

 office— and made very strong representation as to the formid- 

 able and ever-increasing number of welshers, thieves and 

 desperadoes of all sorts, who were apparently admitted with- 

 out let or hindrance on to every race-course in England, and 

 not only on to the courses but even into the rings, where a 

 special payment was exacted for an immunity never afforded 



