JrxE 2, 1882.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



have everywhere mixed more or less with one another, and 

 with the old Euskarian race. Ireland is, perhaps, mainly 

 peopled by Euskarians, intermixed, in most parts, with 

 Celts (but least so in Connemara and Kerry), while round 

 its east coast there is much Scandinavian blood ; and in 

 Ulster there are many Scots, who are really Strathelyde 

 Celt-Euskarians from the western lowlands. So-called 

 English settlers, many of them Welsh or Lancastrian, and 

 others Xorman, are scattered throughout the Pale. But, 

 as a whole, Ireland is probably more Euskarian and less 

 Aryan than any other part of Britain. In Scotland, 

 the north and the Isles are Celt-Euskarian, with a large 

 Scandinavian admixture ; the Central Highlands are 

 Euskarian with a very small Celtic element intermixed ; 

 the eastern Lowlands are mainly English ; and the Western 

 lowlands are peopled Ijy Strathelyde Welshmen — that is 

 to say, Celt-Euskarians, probably with a larger dasli of 

 Aryan Celtic and English blood than elsewliere. Wales is 

 Euskarian at bottom, slightly Celticized, and with a little 

 Englisli and Xorse blood. England itself is mainly 

 English (or Low Dutch) in the south-east ; English and 

 Danish, with a little Celt-Euskarian. admixture, in the 

 Eastern Counties, the North, and the Midlands ; English 

 and Celt-Euskarian in the West country, and the Severn 

 Valley ; and Xorse and Celt-Euskarian in Lancashire and 

 the Lake District. Cornwall alone remains almost whollj' 

 Euskarian in type. All these statements, however, must be 

 accepted merely in the rough, and they apply especially to 

 the agricultural classes and the mass of the people. At 

 the present day, the upper classes have intermarried all 

 over the three kingdoms ; the mercantile classes have moved 

 about till Mac's and 0"s are as common in London as in 

 Perthshire and ^layo ; and even the artisans have poured 

 into every great manufacturing town from all parts of the 

 country. Ever since the beginning of the modern indus- 

 trial movement, there has been a steady southward and 

 eastward return-wave of CeltEuskarian emigrants towards 

 the more organized regions. Irishmen have poured into 

 London, Liverpool, Glasgow, and South Wales ; High- 

 landers into Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Paisley ; Welshmen 

 into. London, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Manchester. 

 At the present day, as Professor Huxley remarks, the 

 dark type seems once more to be numerically superseding 

 the light one. 



Almost all of us are English in language, but most of us 

 are only very partially English in blood. To put the same 

 matter another way, our oldest element is the dark one, 

 now scattered up and down tlirough the population, and 

 only gathered very sparingly into a little nucleus here or 

 there in Ireland and Scotland. This element was Celticised, 

 V)ut not exterminated, by the Aryan Celts, and became 

 with them the Celt-Euskarian "Ajicient Britons " of our 

 history books. Then the Celt-Euskarian was conquered by 

 the Teutonic Englisli, and Anglicised into the English of 

 pre-Nornian times. Next, these mixed English were con- 

 quered by Danes, whom they shortly absorbed. Dane and 

 English were afterwards conquered by Normans, whom 

 once more they absorbed. Dane and Irish in Ireland were 

 next conquered and Anglicised by Norman-English, and the 

 countrj' furtl)er settled at various times by English and 

 Scotch. Lastly, all these elements have coalesced with 

 Welsh, Highland Scotch, and Scandinavians of the Isles, 

 to form one heterogeneous Britisli nation, so inextricably 

 intermixed that its ethnology can now only be reconstructed 

 in the rough. But all through, each earlier element has 

 everywhere persisted in tho resulting mixture, and it is 

 probable that the numerical proportion of all the older 

 elements, especially tho Euskarian, is far greater tlian 

 people generally at all imagine. 



WINNING WAGERS. 



By the Editor. 



IT is rather singular that any writer who points out the 

 folly, or worse, of wagering, is nearly always supposed 

 by a large section of his readers to have wagered a great 

 deal, and to be ready to wager a great deal more. An 

 article I wrote about lotteries for the Cornhill Magazine, 

 immediately brought me several invitations from tlie Con- 

 tinent and from America, to purchase tickets in sundry 

 lotteries. Since I wrote about betting in Kxowledue, I 

 have been asked (who have never wagered a shilling on a 

 race) to give hints for wise wagering whereby fortune may 

 be gained without the usual equivalent of work done. My 

 attention has been directed to the success which book- 

 makers have achieved, and I am asked to put the young 

 and verdant sportsman on the track which lias led to so 

 agreeable a goal. I am further reminded that it is all 

 nonsense for me to assert that betting and gambling must 

 end badly in the long run, for if so much money is lost, 

 much money must be won. " Why may not I," for 

 instance, asks one, "be a successful votary of fortune, and 

 ■win some of the money which you say is always lost by 

 those who wager freely and often 1 " 



Well, not only is this so (I have known a young City 



clerk win £ 1 , ."lOO on the Derby, and regret it for years as 



the worst misfortune that had ever befallen him), but there 

 are ways by which Fortune can be set on one side alto- 

 gether, and money always won on a race, by anyone who, 

 knowing how to proportion his wagers, can give time 

 enough to the subject to get all the wagers made which 

 the system requires. 



At the outset let me note that it is by no means neces- 

 sary that the system I am about to describe should be 

 carried out in a precise and formal manner. If you have 

 a tolerably large capital, or if, in case of failure, you have 

 courage (greatly daring) to run away, you may leave a 

 little to chance on every race, and then, if chance favours 

 you, your gains will be proportionately greater. 



The system is exceedingly simple ; and it will be found 

 that when the method of the great bookmakers is analysed 

 a little, there underlies it the fundamental idea of the 

 system ; yet probably not one among them knows anything 

 about it in detail, though he may thoroughly well under- 

 stand that his method leaves very little to chance. 



First, always lay odds against horses, never back tliem. 

 This is not essential to the system regarded in its scientific 

 aspect ; but in practice, as will presently appear, it makes 

 it easier to apply it. 



Lay against every horse in a race as early as possible, 

 when the odds are longest If you lay against a few which 

 are certain not to run, so much the better ; that is so much 

 clear gain to start with. Proportion your wagers so that 

 the sum of what you lay against a horse, and what he is 

 backed for, may amount to at>out the same for each horse. 

 The precise system requires that it should be exactly the 

 same, but you will find tliat you can often improve upon 

 the system by taking advantage, in special cases, of your 

 own knowledge of a horse's cliance ami your opponent's 

 inexperience. In every case lay odds a point or two 

 short of the legitimate odds against a horse. Suppose for 

 a moment that the odds are ten to one against him, 

 then it will always be easy to find folk who rather 

 fancy the horse, and think tho odds are not eight to one, 

 or even si.x to one, against him ; select such persons for 

 your wagers about that horse. Convey carefully the idea 

 that you also think his chance underrated at eight, or even 

 nine, to one ; but, as a favour, make the odds nine to one. 



