TIPSTERS AND TIPPING 307 



easily secure the Sweepstakes. Epsilon should not be 

 overlooked for the chief handicap. Heta can 

 scarcely lose whatever race is selected for him." 

 There are six races on Tuesday (and some forty 

 other training estabhshments, including a few 

 horses at a village called Newmarket), and the 

 tout-tipster is convinced that they are all coming 

 to Blankton. He said the same last week of 

 Blankton horses, and the week before, and the 

 week before that ; since last any horse won from 

 the ground he watches he has solemnly warned his 

 readers that about eighty different animals must not 

 be missed^ will %vin, cannot be beaten ; they all were 

 beaten, but he goes lumbering on ; and the quaint 

 part of this is that the tout-tipster at the next 

 place is equally certain, others speak with modest 

 hope of their lots, so that each paper contains 

 seven or eight horses that are set down as " sure to 

 capture " the same race — and the man who does 

 the principal tipping, and uses the blackest type, 

 winds up with a confident view in favour of a 

 ninth, coupled perhaps with a tenth. That any 

 editor should tolerate this cocksure local lunatic 

 for a tipster is a mystery, and editors are not very 

 discreet who allow these provincial scribes to 

 eulogise week after week " your superb special," to 

 say that they will send further accounts to " your 



