176 THE POST AND THE PADDOCK. 



Botany Bay, about the same time that his great name- 

 sake was translated to Durham. 



The touts of the present day form a very large 

 class on the turf, and are constantly recruited by a 

 never-failing supply of over-grown grooms, who burst 

 on to the prophetic world of literature, as " Volti- 

 geur," " Goldfinder," and the like. About forty or 

 fifty of them live in Newmarket, and receive about 

 1 Is. a week from their employers, whose weekly 

 reports have been sadly less lucid since the new trial- 

 course came into use ; it takes, however, no ordinary 

 vigilance to baffle them, and their devices would be 

 worthy of Field himself. The mere skirters of the 

 fraternity are great in the " outer ring," and from 

 what transpired in a train last September, we suspect 

 that not a few of the poorest contrive to get along 

 the railways by occasionally " squaring " the guard. 

 The public-house is their great sphere of action ; and 

 there was an instance two seasons since, when one of 

 the most distinguished of the craft casually learnt all 

 he required from a village whitewasher, who revealed 

 to him over a can of ale for which the te very civil 

 drovier chap " insisted on paying, that the object of 

 his search, " A horse with two white heels 1 don't 

 know the name/' had walked very lame behind, as he 

 was shifted during the whitewashing process from one 

 box to another. The unconscious knight of the brush 

 little knew what suspicions he had confirmed, and 

 what telegraph-wires he set at work before evening 

 closed in. The Flying Dutchman was watched by a 

 perfect squadron of them before the Derby, and 

 Fobert in fact counted sixteen heads, looking like as 

 many crows in file, watching the horse from behind a 

 wall near Spigot Lodge as he came out for exercise. 

 One of the leaders candidly informed him that he had 

 " orders to see him in and out," but that on due 

 notice, he " would retire like a gentleman to a dis- 

 tance," whenever he wished to have a trial. Ted- 



