XVI PREFACE. 



or as to speed, between the vanished horses of the eighteenth century and the cracks 

 of our modern classic races. Even if it were fair to ask a verdict from the 

 juxtaposition of one of the masterpieces of Sartorius with the instantaneous record 

 of a modern kodak, I doubt very much whether the advocate of twentieth-century 

 progress would be satisfied with the result. The time test would be just as 

 fallacious ; and I arn glad to think that the American hunger for time records has 

 never become popular on this side of the Atlantic. We still prefer a stoutly- 

 contested and honestly-run race to all the records in the world. 



If I were asked to state any noticeable differences between the sportsmanship of 

 the end of the nineteenth century and that of its first decade, I should point, not so 

 much to the sports themselves as to the people who take part in them, above all to 

 the extraordinary increase in the number of spectators. It is not usually imagined 

 that we have more time lying idle on our hands than our forefathers had ; yet how 

 the gigantic crowds on a racecourse or a football field can be otherwise explained 

 remains a mystery to me. I do not believe that the athletic revival, about which a 

 great deal has been talked and written, has done so much to fill the old channels of 

 good sport to the brim as it has to spread the waves of energy over a far wider 

 expanse than was ever known before, with the result that the current has naturally 

 become rather more slow and feeble in some places than in others. Amateur rowing 

 has been kept alive by Henley and the Boat Race. Football came suddenly down 

 upon the land like a mountain-torrent in full spate, and may very possibly diminish 

 its proportions just as swiftly. But Racing was set too deep in the nation's heart to 

 suffer much, except by overcrowding, and by that spirit of money-making which has 

 so altered the face of all the land where true sport is concerned. 



In later chapters I shall be obliged to go more into detail in the matter of the 

 changes which this spirit has necessitated on the Turf I note it merely, now, as 

 one manifestation among others of that new power of gate-money which has 

 revolutionised the external methods of our racecourses as much as it has altered the 

 conditions of well-nigh every other sport we have. The best owners have gone on 

 their way undisturbed, and the Jockey Club has effectually guarded the public 

 morals of the Turf. But these men are only a few among the many. From Sir 

 Charles Bunbury to the Prince of Wales, there have always been racing men who 

 cared more for the sport than for what they could get out of it. The difference is 

 that there are not half so many of them now, in proportion to the whole number, as 

 there were once. Not only has the passion for betting extended to circles who 



