BOOKMAKERS AND BOOKMAKING 203 



tion between the manufacture of guns and 

 hardware and the making of acrobatic signals on 

 racecourses, but in stating the town — or is it 

 now a city ? — of their origin I am only giving 

 a fact. The tick-tack man — who oddly enough 

 is more to the fore in France, where the pari- 

 mutuel is the chief means of speculation, than in 

 England — is the personage who suddenly appears 

 in the less crowded parts of the ring and goes 

 through a performance something between the 

 extension motions as taught by the drill sergeant, 

 and the exercises advocated as so peculiarly 

 beneficial to the general health by professors of 

 what is known as Swedish treatment. The object 

 of the display is to inform persons on the other 

 side of the course or elsewhere within visual 

 range as to the state of the odds. They meet 

 together, these quaint creatures and their associates, 

 every Sunday evening and arrange their codes for 

 the ensuing week, jealously altering their signs and 

 signals. A curious wagging motion of the hands 

 may have signified for the last six days that the 

 third horse on the list of starters was at even 

 money. Next week the same gestures indicate 

 that it is at 10 to I. A thumb jerked over the 

 right shoulder implies that the favourite is in 

 strong demand ; last week it meant that an 



