8 EFFECT PRODUCED BY THE BETTING FRATERNITY. 



checked or stopped the better. If a race-course, 

 instead of being a healthful and exhilarating spot, 

 where we expect to see an assemblage of the first 

 sporting men in the world, their families, their friends, 

 and their tenants, come to enjoy a truly English 

 and noble sport, is to be converted into an extended 

 rouge et noir table, and black and red to win, not 

 because either is on the best horse, but because it 

 suits the books of a set of miscreants, it is quite time 

 to stop the thing at once, and begin it de novo. 



We have, however, still a few (and God knows a 

 very few) men on the Turf whose character and 

 position in life place them beyond suspicion ; but 

 among the Nobility of the United Kingdom which 

 amounts, I should say, to about seven hundred, 

 independently of Lords by courtesy, we find now 

 scarcely more than twenty patronising the Turf by 

 keeping race-horses a pretty sure criterion of its 

 respectability under the present system ! Formerly, 

 when racing was carried on as racing should be, if a 

 man won, he walked up to his horse, received the 

 congratulations of his friends, and felt a very justi- 

 fiable pride in his horse's triumph ; he knew he had 

 won fairly, and had no fear of being suspected of 

 having ever done otherwise. But now, nothing appears 

 to be done openly : the owner of a horse retires among 

 the crowd, and appears, and really is, afraid of being 

 pointed out as connected with the Turf. A man, 

 indeed, must rank very high in public estimation to 

 keep his character unscathed. I have mentioned how 

 few of our Nobility now keep race-horses : what a 

 host of those, and men of family and fortune, could I 

 name who have given it up ! What does this prove ? 

 Not that such men are not as well disposed to 



