Bookmakers. 83 



" The first Derby winner that sensibly quickened and whetted tlie public appetite for betting 

 on horse-races was the Earl of Zetland's Voltigeur, in 1850, whom all the men-servants and maid- 

 servants at Aske, from the ladies'-maids down to the scullery-maids, had backed for all their 

 savings and perquisites, the tip being followed by their numerous friends and acquaintances. The 

 ' talent ' backed other horses. The money went main!)' into the pockets of the servants' halls 

 and the outside public. Upon the morning after the race Davies paid i^/o.ooo across the counter 

 in little bets. In the years following Voltigeur's victory, the flow of sovereigns into the till of 

 Davies was unchecked and prodigious Then came a dismal tale of ruined butlers and grooms 

 and clerks, who had robbed tlieir employers in order to stake their money with Davies and 

 B. Green. At the instance of Sir Richard Mayne the lists were suppressed by an Act of 

 Parliament. The lists were an institution which directly tempted clerks and shopmen to em- 

 bezzlement, but they were an immense convenience to owners of horses who wanted to back 

 an animal in one sum for a big stake, without an)'thing being known of the transaction. It is 

 an accepted maxim that no owner of a stud of racehorses can pay his expenses without the 

 gains of betting. In 1S76 every e.Kisting owner of racehorses, except Lord Falmouth and Mr. 

 Houldsworth, depended partly on betting for making a profitable balance at the end of the 

 year. But it has become more difficult for an owner to take advantage of the goodness or 

 badness of any of his stud. His 'commissioner' is watched and imitated." 



"The public, who are vigilant and ceaseless readers of 'training reports,' are ever ready 

 to jump in so soon as fifty or one hundred sovereigns have been invested for the stable. So 

 correct and penetrating is indeed the information about every training stable which, by a 

 dozen underground channels, now finds its way to little backers, that it is rare for the stable to 

 get the first skim of the market. The result is that owners of small studs of horses, and especially 

 those who train at Newmarket, are at their wits' end. Having kept a horse that can run for 

 twelve, eighteen, or twenty-four months, the hapless owner finds that when he sends a commissioner 

 to back the rod in pickle the public know as much as he does, and cannot be stalled off. 

 So long as the Sportsman can be bought daily for one penny, there will be thousands of readers 

 who know -whether a horse is doing strong work or not, and how he galloped upon the previous 

 morning. There is no possibility of having false favourites in these days. The betting lists 

 have been put down by successive Acts of Parliament and the severity of the magistrates of the 

 metropolis ; to a great extent they still exist like illicit stills. Ready-money betting has also been 

 made illegal. 



But the small fry of bookmakers, for the most part " welshers " (i.e., people who never pay, 

 except, like Pistol, on compulsion), are still numerous, and still pursue their wretched trade 

 under difficulties, hunted from public-houses to the parks, from the parks to the waste lands 

 of the City, from the waste lands to quiet lanes, and there continually made to " move on." 

 They still swarm like locusts round the gates of authorised betting-rings, and reap a scanty 

 silver harvest from a never-ceasing crop of fools at once credulous and greedy. 



The Legislature has not thought fit and does not seem likely to interfere with the branch of 

 the wagering profession which still flourishes in clubs and subscrii^tion-rooms to minister to 

 the demands of the wealthy for this essentially British form of gambling. It is presumed that the 

 members of Tattersall's and other clubs established on the same principle are able to take care 

 of themselves. The late Richard Tattersall used to say that the bookmakers' club, tlie Victoria, 

 was founded because the aristocracy who would bet would not "eat" with these professional 

 gambleis. 



In my first edition I tried to give those of my readers who were quite outside the turf 



