BOOKMAKERS AND BOOKMAKING 207 



bookmakers' clerks. These latter prove so useful 

 that their employers take them into partnership, 

 give them a share of the book, frequently no doubt 

 to their mutual profit. Not a few fielders are 

 really only agents. Some man with capital, or 

 perhaps a syndicate, provides funds and starts a 

 layer to make a book. I know two or three such 

 fielders who have broken master after master. It 

 is easy to be adventurous if you are dealing with 

 another person's money and have a complacently 

 elastic sort of conscience. On this subject I will 

 only end with the obvious remark that it is 

 exceedingly rash to give a man practically the run 

 of your banking account unless you are absolutely 

 certain of the sort of man with whom you are 

 dealing. 



A less laborious way of trying to get money 

 by laying against racehorses, other than travelling 

 and shouting in all weathers, is to open an office 

 somewhere — many such offices, as readers are 

 probably aware, are in some of the best streets of 

 the West End, Piccadilly, Bond Street, Regent 

 Street, &c. — and bet by letter, wire or telephone, 

 either on the comparatively few races on which 

 there is now ante-post speculation, the newspaper 

 odds guiding these transactions, or S.P. — starting 

 price — on the day of the race. 



