A GROWING EVIL AND ITS REMEDY. 275 



boys, I think no more need be said to prove on my part that 

 the sooner the scale of weights is raised the better. 



I must confess that I am not a great admirer of the 

 Education Act in its appHcation to the youths intended for 

 the racing business. It prevents them being taught anything 

 but their school lessons until they are too old to be taught 

 riding as children ; and the probability is, that when they 

 come forward to ride in public, they will year by year know 

 less and less of the rudiments of the art. This, in itself, is 

 an additional reason, were one needed, for having boys of a 

 certain weight, or men, as jockeys, I fear, too, that the in- 

 fluence of the Act in the stable will be still further to elevate 

 the ideas of both men and boys already too prone to think 

 themselves above their work. 



Before finally leaving the subject, it may be well to point 

 out a most pernicious practice that has lately sprung up in 

 connection with the light-weight system. I refer to the 

 galloping from the saddling paddock, harum-scarum, like so 

 many wild Indians, uphill and down dale, over uneven ground 

 wet or dry, to obtain a supposed preference in the choice of 

 the side from which to start. As a consequence, older 

 jockeys, who, properly consulting their employer's interests, 

 go steadily to the post, are, at the instance of these boys, 

 made on their arrival to take what place they can find — a 

 practice unfair, and which cannot be too strongly deprecated. 

 Owners, unable to restrain these impetuous youths, suffer by 

 having their horses broken down. But the stewards, if in- 

 formed of the practice, which is a nuisance both intolerable 

 and dangerous, might put an effective stop to it by fining 

 every jockey who should be first at the post more than once 

 on the same day, and by suspending him for a repetition of 

 the offence. 



T 2 



