THE PROGRESS OF THE SPORT. 



49 



veiled in a mist of words about honourable dealing with the 

 public, is a direct attack upon a confidential servant for keep- 

 ing his master's counsel. And mark the interpretation of the 

 word ' honourable ' ; evidently, crooked answers to impertinent 

 questions are deemed highly ' dishonourable.' What term, then, 

 shall we apply to the questioner who is so admirably candid 

 in his baffled curiosity, and who never stops to consider that 

 he who pays the piper has a right to call the tune, and that an 

 owner has the strictest right to enforce silence on his servants ? 

 Another specimen from the pen of the same writer still 

 more fully illustrates his code of turf ethics. Proceeding with 

 his review of racing for 1883, he says : 



During my career of twenty-four years as a writer, I have never 

 known so many reversals of form and glaring inconsistencies in 

 which trainers and jockeys, if not owners, must have been con- 

 cerned as during the past season. Deep calculations and brain- 

 racking with regard to the past form, the make, shapes, and sound- 

 ness of this or that horse, are all thrown away if the animal on 

 which the hopes of turf writers are centred becomes impounded 

 within the ring, or is mercilessly scratched on the eve of a race. 

 In the former case the writer suffers most unfairly, and indeed in 

 these go-ahead times the sporting tipster has much more to con- 

 tend against than his readers generally suppose. 



And again, towards the conclusion of the article, he says : 



I have said enough in reference to the ' manipulation ' of horses, 

 and the betting of some trainers, to nauseate the reader if he be 

 an honourable man ; but the astounding reversals of form shown 

 by several horses during the past season call for strong con- 

 demnation at the hands of every sporting writer, for the reason 

 that it upsets his calculations in reference to the selection of win- 

 ners for the benefit of the public ! 



It may be urged that it is not fair to quote such paragraphs 

 without the full context, but no context can justify such moral 

 obliquity as is implied in the foregoing words. Honesty is 

 honesty, and wrong is wrong per se. No man is under any 

 circumstances justified in pulling a horse, or causing him to be 



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