CARDSELLERS, TOUTS, AND AUGURS. 177 



dington's trial was known in Newmarket (though 

 not fully believed) a few hours after it was run, and 

 Cataract and Sorella were the objects of particular 

 attention when they were matched. When Bill Scott 

 used to live near Knavesmire, his motions were 

 watched night and day, whenever a trial at Malton 

 was about to come off, and it was almost impossible 

 for him to steal away from York at any time of the 

 night without having them on his track. Some of 

 them are put on by the backers of a horse " to bon- 

 net" him, and then, as Mr. Harry Hill observes, 

 " they wink as if they were going to knock an omnibus 

 over ;" and many of the principal owners employ a 

 private tout of their own, often a young ex-jockey, 

 who has acquired a good knowledge of styles of going, 

 and perhaps make him stick to one horse they fancy, 

 or the reverse, for a whole season. 



The racing tipsters have much less patronage than 

 formerly, before " Geoffrey Greenhorn " laid a trap 

 for them, and published the tips he received in The 

 Life. Professor Ingledue, M.A., the mesmerist, is 

 silent ; and if their subscribers, " for whose interests 

 I have collected my old and able staff, with many 

 additional ones, who are already at work in the train- 

 ing districts," could only get a sight of the " old and 

 able staff," they would find it consisting of a man 

 and a boy, " at work" in the back room of a London 

 public house, and sending different winners for every 

 race to their subscribers. At one of the Yorkshire 

 training towns a schoolmaster commenced as prophet 

 to a London paper, and it turned out that he had got 

 all his information by writing the letters Ibr the touts 

 between school-hours. 



Their advertisements furnish a fine field for any 

 future compiler of " Curiosities of Literature." Some 

 are headed " My tongue is not for falsehood framed ;" 

 " California without cholera Gold without danger ;" 

 and " The Hero of a Hundred Fights." James Bes- 



