WALTER 67 



ONE MILE AND A QUARTER 



Vagabond, 3 yrs., 7 st. 2 lb. . . . .1 



The Palmer, 5 yrs., 9 st. 7 lb. . . .2 



Blue Gown, 4 yrs., 9 st. 13 lb. . . .3 



King Cophetua, 3 yrs., 7 st. 2 lb. . . .4 



Won by a length ; a neck between second and third, and 

 four lengths between third and fourth. 



At that time the notorious Walter, the son of 

 the landlady of the Swan Inn, Kingsclere, was 

 ' managing ' an impudently fraudulent Discretionary 

 Investment Scheme, in connection with which he 

 published a sheet of four pages called ' The 

 Kingsclere Racing Circular.' He advertised ex- 

 tensively in the sporting journals, forged and garbled 

 1 opinions of the press,' invented winners of immense 

 stakes by his ' system,' and otherwise employed 

 every nefarious dodge which a shrewd conception 

 of the unquestioning greed of his gullible dupes — 

 whose name was legion — and a cunning, but utterly 

 knavish, brain could devise. Such ' information ' as 

 could be wormed out of a corrupted stable boy or 

 two in the Kingsclere stable (there is a black sheep 

 or dark-complexioned lambkin in every flock) he 

 no doubt occasionally obtained, and, as was dis- 

 covered before the suborned youngster was found 

 guilty and sent about his business, paid for. On 

 leaving school Walter had been placed with a 

 chemist and druggist at Newbury ; but honest 

 employment of any description was distasteful to 

 him, therefore he abandoned the pestle and mortar 



F 2 



