BETTING. 27 y, 



from these ruffians. There had been a considerable amount 

 of correspondence in the newspapers for some time on this 

 ' Race-course Ruffianism,' many of the writers alleging that 

 it was almost as much as a man's life was worth to raise any 

 protest or complaint on the spot against the villainous company 

 in which he found himself, so likely was he to be marked out for 

 vengeance by one or other of the gangs. A certain amount of 

 exaggeration no doubt there may have been in this outcry, but 

 that it also contained a great deal of truth was now forcibly 

 urged upon the stewards by Mr. Fry, who furthermore under- 

 took to say that so serious did the state of affairs appear to the 

 mass of respectable bookmakers, that if the Jockey Club would 

 sanction a licensing system, the ring men were prepared to pay 

 for such privilege heavy fees, which might be apphed to the 

 raising and maintenance of a body of detective police, who 

 should be under the sole management of the Club, who should 

 enforce and be responsible for order on all race-courses, and 

 whose engagement for that purpose should be by rule made 

 obligatory on all clerks of courses. 



Such, roughly outlined, was the scheme which was proposed 

 by Mr. Fry to the stewards, and by them laid before the Club 

 during the Houghton meeting of 1892. 



As is usual in such cases the Club referred the whole 

 matter back again to their executive, not without a word of 

 warning as to the danger of so wide a departure from Club tra- 

 ditions as would be involved in any quasi-legalisation of betting, 

 and a strong expression of feeling that * counsel's opinion ' of 

 the highest must be obtained ere any definite step was taken in 

 this direction. To all which the stewards replied in effect that 

 they had no intention of doing or sanctioning anything, with or 

 without legal authority, unless they were first convinced that 

 there was amongst the bookmakers such a desire for the change 

 as amounted to actual unanimity. 



After the lapse of a few weeks — during which, it is needless 

 to relate, as much nonsense was written in the sporting papers 

 as the dead season was likely to produce — Mr. Fry put his ideas 



T 



