490 AMERICAN FARMEE'S HORSE BOOK 



for an hour or two, torn himself away from his whist and 

 champagne, presides on this important occasion. It is his 

 yearly turn-out from his pipe and his gout. It is vacation- 

 time, also, in the gambling dens of the adjoining cities, and 

 every blackguard that is accustomed to frequent them is sure 

 to be found at the races. There betting goes on briskly, of 

 course, from the clean-shaven gambler that can bluster out 

 his offer of hundreds to tens downward in the scale of human 

 respectability, to the boys and negroes, whose sole resources 

 consist in coats, hats, dogs, and jack-knives. 



But the professional gamblers comprise but a small propor- 

 tion of the vast concourse there assembled. Every sink of 

 iniquity of the region round about has a full delegation at 

 the races. Every house of ill-fame, every rum-hole, every 

 hot-bed of vice and crime is here represented. Gamblers, 

 prostitutes, pimps, pickpockets, confidence-men, and swind- 

 lers of all sorts, thieves, robbers, burglars, and the like, are 

 all here. And for what? Many of them to ply their dis- 

 honest callings, or to advertise their degrading vocations; 

 while the least corrupt spectator has no other motive than 

 to see two or more dumb animals forced at the top of their 

 speed — no matter at what cost of suffering and injury — for 

 one, two, or three miles, as the case may be, and to learn 

 how one grand scoundrel fleeces another grand scoundrel out 

 of the money that the latter, in turn, had swindled some 

 other grand scoundrel out of not quite so sharp as he. 



The excitement goes on, and many a successful better wins 

 only to swell the gains of the pickpocket. But another ex- 

 citement follows, or, perhaps, attends. A festive board is 

 spread, at which King Alcohol presides, and his votaries are 

 many. Here the jolly crowd jest, and laugh, and tipple, the 

 bottles pop, the wine flows, and the foaming cups run over. 

 Here they forget " all their troubles, while money flies, and 

 whiskey bubbles," until at last some chivalric reveller begins 

 a row, ending, perchance, in murder, and so the curtain drops. 

 The great convocation, assembled from the purlieus and the 

 gaudier haunts of vice in the neighboring cities in the inter- 



