EVILS OF USURY. 243 



a guinea, but each and every year paid its own expenses, 

 leaving a balance in his lordship's favour. And I suspect if 

 other people kept as strict an account, we should hear of more 

 winners and fewer losers on the turf, and discover that, after 

 all, racing, like other amusements, may be indulged in in 

 a less expensive form than is generally supposed — possibly 

 at half the cost of hunting. Large and small studs I have 

 shown can be made self-subsisting ; and what has before been 

 done, may be done again. But it is not so with any other 

 amusements. They are all more or less costly, and do not 

 offer the remotest chance of returning to those who participate 

 in them a guinea either of capital or expenditure. But racing, 

 if regulated and kept within prescribed limits, has the advan- 

 tage over all other field sports, that besides the pleasure 

 derived from it, it is possible with a limited income to gain 

 a fortune by it, if not in the first, then in subsequent years. 



The gist of the matter is, that betting rather than racing 

 ruins the majority of gentlemen on the turf. This is the real 

 cause of all great disasters ; and yet without it, it must be 

 admitted racing could not be carried on. You wage an 

 unequal war with the bookmakers who subsist by betting. 

 They back all, you back but one ; and, besides other advan- 

 tages, they never lay too long odds, whilst you never obtain 

 fair odds. Yet on occasion a good bet may, and should be 

 made, when you have a good horse of your own. On the other 

 hand, it should be a rigid principle never to back other 

 people's horses ; for of their merits you can know but little, 

 and of their condition less. 



But, bad as is the result of indiscriminate betting, that of 

 borrowing money from usurers is worse. Against such a 

 revelation as that given at foot, who can stand ? Or what 

 practices on the turf can compare with such extortion and 



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