"'SCEPTRE' WINS!' 



689 



in it does not go into the pockets of people who support the Turf in any shape 

 or form, and the abolition of the uncleanly parasites who flourish on it can only 

 benefit the health of the institution they dishonour. To sweep them and their 

 nauseous abuses from the face of the land would be a very different thing from 

 trying the impossible task of preventing betting altogether, an amusement which 

 may be just as cleanly and just as honourable as any other form of pastime in 

 which pecuniary considerations are unavoidably present. The Duke of Portland 

 has said that if the Turf were a hotbed of roguery he would have nothing to 

 do with it. And he does not think it advisable, "or even possible, to try to put 

 a stop to betting by the law of the land. . . . The percentage of honourable men 

 connected with the Turf 

 is as high as in any 

 other profession." 



We heard of no 

 faddist crusade against 

 the banking business 

 because the catastrophe 

 at Glasgow revealed a 

 tissue of dishonesty and 

 fraud, to which the Turf 

 can offer no parallel, 

 either in the actual com- 

 mission of crime or in 

 the widespread disaster 

 which followed it. Those 



who sell us the necessaries of life are not, all of them, above making their fortunes 

 out of a subtle adulteration of various goods which in one form or another the 

 public is bound to buy. The manipulation of mines, and companies, in the City 

 of London is not invariably conducted on lines which are above the reproach of 

 the financial purist. The Turf is not alone, in fact, in possessing scoundrels 

 among those who follow it, nor is it by any means the most fruitful soil on 

 which scoundrelism can flourish. To say that racing produces betting, and should 

 therefore be discouraged, is to commit the critic to a crusade against far more 

 institutions than the Turf. I am not sure that in logical fairness he ought not to 

 proceed to deplore the existence of Westminster Bridge and the British Museum, 



Hon. L. \\~illoughby {Newmarket, 1902). 



