THE TOUT'S TIP. 



* Bah ! I tell you that " Training Intelligence" is all rot ! What 

 do these touts know about a horse when they see him ? They 

 just pick up whatever crumbs of information the lads and stable- 

 boys choose to let fall, and dish them up for the papers. I'd no 

 more go to them for a straight tip than I'd go to Gladstone for 

 a character of Dizzy.' 



The speaker was a man about thirty-five, big and blustering, 

 with an emphatic warmth of manner which carried all before it. 

 The place was the smoking-room of an hotel in a well-known 

 Midland racing town. We had been discussing the memorial 

 just presented to the Jockey Club by the trainers, petitioning 

 that august body to take immediate steps to arrest the future 

 progress of a system which the memorialists stigmatised as ' dis- 

 honourable in practice, injurious to owners and trainers, and 

 entirely subversive of the morality and best interests of the 

 Turf A distinguished sportsman and well-known writer, since 

 dead, was present, and when I and one or two others maintained 

 that under the present system of betting the public had a right 

 to know the truth regarding every horse quoted in the betting 

 market, and that the tout was, therefore, a useful public servant, 

 that distinguished sportsman said almost savagely, 



' Were I to commence racing again, I would hit the Ring and 

 the betting fraternity such a hot one as would scare them from 

 backing my horses for the future. I would give a public notice 

 that any one backing my horses would lose their money. Sup- 

 posing I started a favourite, I would lose rather than the horse 

 should win, so long as I let the Ring in. I would remain quiet 

 while they were " piling on the agony," and on the very day of 

 the race scratch him. I shouldn't race for the public amusement, 

 but for my own. What is the public to me, or what do I care 

 for it ?' 



' That's a very extraordinary view of racing,' I said, ' and I 

 hope there are not many sportsmen who hold it. It seems to 



