62 The Post and the Paddock. 



" friend" (who, first by persuasion, and then by bully- 

 ing, tried to make her believe he was to " stand 

 in") to give a hint of what it meant. To show the 

 hold that this epidemic took on the lower classes, we 

 have heard that a poor man, when he was asked for 

 his child's name at the font, gave the minister by mis- 

 take a betting ticket with " Springy Jack" on it ; and 

 a Yorkshire gamekeeper showed us, in that very year 

 (1848), three tickets on which he had expended three 

 guineas for the St. Leger alone ! He had withstood 

 three poachers, and fought with his teeth when they 

 disabled his arms ; but the list lure was too strong for 

 Sampson, and his wife seemed equally infatuated on 

 the point. 



The system had become so complete by the exten- 

 sion of the telegraph wires to the race-course, that 

 owners could be backing their horses in London and 

 the enclosure at the same time. A great Northern 

 trainer had, in fact, two horses, each in two races at 

 York, on one afternoon ; and about twenty minutes 

 before the first came off, he received a telegraphic mes- 

 sage, which showed him that his town commissioner 

 had backed the wrong horse very largely for that race, 

 and he had only just time to get the other from the 

 stable and send it to the post. The list-houses did 

 a strong business ; and certainly as long as they did 

 not take deposits (?), they had quite as much right to 

 pursue their calling as Tattersall's, where, under the 

 new Act, no one can be called on to " cover." Albeit 

 the bill of 1853 has done its work, and the fatal 

 facility induced by the open deposit system is nipped 

 in the bud. Inspector Brennan and his cohorts no 

 longer produce piles of betting tickets as the sad results 

 of their station-house search, and those who merely re- 

 gard the turf as a pleasant pastime on an occasional 

 holiday afternoon, are spared the shame of hearing that 

 another poor fellow has had to rue the day he ever saw 

 or read of it amid the mint and rue of the Old Bailey. 



