FAIR REMUNERATION THE SIMPLE REMEDY. 165 



fully keeps your secrets, then a present, and a substantial 

 one, would be but a well-deserved compliment, which it 

 would be a meanness to withhold. 



But I have already avowed my appreciation of the services 

 of an able jockey. It is to those who are better described as 

 unformed riders than as jockeys, that I particularly refer. To 

 such boys the gift of a small sum might not only be welcome, 

 but amply sufficient to foster honesty and frugality. If this 

 were to be the practice, we should see an end of the ruinous 

 dissipation indulged in by these mites — the result of lavish 

 gifts accepted without thanks. 



If we turn to days gone by, we shall find things very dif- 

 ferent, and in their results very much more satisfactory. When 

 boys as jockeys were neither wanted nor known, men used to 

 look upon a five-pound note for services well and truly per- 

 formed as an acceptable present. What would the jockeys of 

 to-day think of a present offered to them like the following, 

 and for similar services ? After winning the Two Thousand, 

 the One Thousand, and the Newmarket Stakes for the Duke 

 of Grafton, the jockey was requested to attend at the lodging 

 of Lord G. Fitzroy (the duke's brother) who wished to make 

 him a present. His lordship, after descanting on the jockey's 

 virtues as a man and his ability as a jockey, finished a 

 diatribe of about half-an-hour's duration by taking from his 

 writing-desk a purse, and saying, " In the duke's name, and 

 for him, I present you with two new five-pound notes on the 

 bank at Bury St. Edmunds, and beg you will take care of 

 them." This was rather a different method of appreciating 

 or rewarding talent than is customary now, and yet they had 

 honest jockeys, and good ones too, in those days. 



Judging from my own experience, I do not think rich gifts 

 were often presented then to jockeys or for some years after ; 



