BUT BETTING IS. 11 



can, they will never ruin him more than keeping his 

 hunters, if he can afford to keep them : if he cannot, 

 they will, of course, eventually equally ruin him. It 

 is not, therefore, that hunters or race-horses are in 

 themselves to be considered as ruinous ; but the ruin 

 arises from keeping any thing a man cannot afford to 

 keep. 



We will now, however, look at another and very 

 distinct feature in racing affairs (pity it is not more 

 distinct); namely, the betting part of the business. 

 Though " the tug of war" may come when " Greek 

 meets Greek," when the man of honour meets the Greek 

 there is no tug of war at all : the forlorn hope alone 

 advances, advances at the pas de charge ; the forlorn 

 hope is the man of honour, and of course is " blown 

 up." Therefore, although give a man, we will say 

 2000^. a year, and he chooses to keep four horses in 

 training, I should never fear his merely keeping and 

 running them being his ruin : let me once see him 

 back his horses in any thing like a heavy bet, from that 

 moment (and particularly should he be so unfortunate 

 as to win) I will back him at 50 to 1 to be ruined in 

 a very short time: indeed a few meetings will sew 

 him up. He has then only one thing left if he means 

 to keep on the Turf; and that is, to throw aside all 

 feelings of honour, turn Leg, and rob other people. 

 This man certainly has no right to say racing or race 

 horses have been his ruin. True, if he had never 

 kept race-horses, he might not have been led into bet- 

 ting ; nor would he if he had never been born : so if 

 he chooses to carry the thing back to its first cause, 

 he may with tolerably fair logic affirm that betting 

 has been his ruin that keeping race-horses brought 

 on betting and that being born brought on keeping 



