PROLOGUE 



Being Preliminary Information for Opponents of Racing How 

 I became interested in Bloodstock and Racing in Early 

 Days How I indulged in Betting The Kingcraft " Orgy '-' 

 Birmingham Dog Show preferred to " Smalls '' Beaten for 

 '- Mods. > by Prince Charlie 



MANY people have often urged me to write 

 reminiscences, but I have felt personally dis- 

 inclined to do so, until the discovery that my 

 sister had preserved practically all the letters I ever 

 wrote to her in young days has led me to reconsider the 

 position, for these letters contain a great deal of matter 

 which may prove of general interest if only I can dis- 

 criminate among them rightly, and without thought of 

 myself, to whom they are all interesting. 



At the very outset I am going to give the opponents of 

 racing what they may think chapter and verse as proof 

 conclusive of the disastrous influence of the love of horses 

 on a promising career. Later on, I shall show that all 

 such inferences are entirely fallacious ; but for the moment 

 I make them a present of the following brief record. 



"W" CANNOT cure him, do ' vat I can ' \" Such was 

 the remark of William or Henry Stebbing, made in 



JL my presence, in the summer of 1857, when I, a very 

 small boy indeed, with my father and mother and the late 

 Mr Joseph Arrowsmith, of Sowerby, Thirsk, accompanied 

 also by Mr Simpson (a Proctor of York) and his wife, 

 were in the stables on Hambleton, and Mr Simpson, as 

 self-sufficient men will do, had walked up to a horse in 

 one of the stalls and narrowly escaped being lifted to the 

 ceiling by a vigorous kick. The horse was, however, 

 roped and chained from every side, and he screamed. 

 B 17 



