256 BETTING AS IT MIGHT BE. 



CHAPTER XXV. 



BETTING AS IT MIGHT BE. 



Suggested remedies : to legalize betting — Restrictions on commissioners — Gentle- 

 men recommended three courses : to do their own commissions ; to employ 

 their equals ; or to name and adhere to a price— Suggested alteration in 

 system of nomination and entry : a different time of entry ; a new mode of 

 acceptance ; the proposed method sketched, and the result, betting on the 

 nomination — Benefits of the proposal illustrated from the Waterloo Cup ; the 

 tipster and tout done away with — Bookmakers and their procedure ; a rever- 

 sion to the old tactics recommended— Betting on the Waterloo "draw" 

 examined ; the one disappointment, Coornassie forestalled, and its warning — 

 The criticism of able writers commended and desired. 



One of the most effective remedies applied to betting would 

 be to legalize it. This would not only influence commis- 

 sions, but would extend to cases calling for the law's restraint 

 — to welshers, and to those who, often winning thousands, 

 decamp on the first reverse of fortune. If transactions on 

 the Stock Exchange are legal, why should it be otherwise 

 with those on the turf? Honest men of every grade desire 

 they should be ; only dishonest men require provision of such 

 a nature as to permit non-fulfilment of their engagements 

 to the great injury of those that complete them. 



Now, just as the solicitor who wilfully neglects a case that 

 he undertakes to conduct, or from incapacity destroys rather 

 than assists it, is amenable for such shortcomings ; so it should 

 be with a commission agent, who, from any cause save a just 



