THE BETTING RING. 59 



Aaron Worsley, G. Desboro', Hargreaves, Islimael 

 Fisher, G. Reed, Howard, Onslow, Brabazon, Barber, 

 F. Swindells, Sargent, Adkins, Kimpton, C. Snewing, 

 Sherwood, Justice, Portman, Whitbourne, Saxon, 

 W. Robinson, Jackson (who is "the coming man"), 

 Pedley, G. Hill, Bennett, &c.,are popularly supposed 

 to make them at all figures, from 10,000 to 1,000. 

 Foal books have gone out of fashion, but Mr. Harry 

 Hill has a 10,000 yearling one, and lays his hun- 

 dred, seventy-five, or fifty to one odds, according as 

 he fancies the pedigree of the yearling he lays against. 

 To speak, however, with any degree of accuracy as to 

 book-making would baffle even " The Wise Woman," 

 as the strangest canards are always floating about as 

 to " books " and winnings, and it is morally impos- 

 sible to separate what a man does on commission, 

 from what he achieves on his own account. Some 

 few confine themselves to commission business, the 

 recognized remuneration for which is five per cent., 

 the commissioner taking all the risk. Old Michael 

 Brunton used to boast that he visited Doncaster 

 (whose High Street is always so redolent of toffy and 

 ( c mellow peers ") for sixty-one years in succession, 

 and made a grand wind-up with Voltigeur's Cup day. 

 Perhaps, at present, Frank Garner, a farmer in Sur- 

 rey, is one of the oldest Ring-men we have, and visit- 

 ed Newmarket last year for his fifty-first consecutive 

 season ; and Fred Swindells is one of the cleverest. 

 When the " Swindells attack" once opens on a horse, 

 it rarely fails to be his crack of doom. A meteor oc- 

 casionally starts up for a season or two. Nine or ten 

 years ago, two rose almost together, and it was said 

 that if Nottingham had won the Cesarewitch, or Sting 

 the Cambridgeshire, they would have hit the Ring 

 twice over for about 130,000. One of them was just 

 as careless about the odds he laid, as the latest con- 

 stellation was upon receiving days ; and if the last- 

 named had trusted to the infallible inspiration which 



