16 : ' NE VILE VELIS." 



No man would warn his son or his friends from, 

 mixing with the former, while every one guards him 

 from racing altogether, fearing he should meet with, 

 and consequently be pillaged by, the latter. If I 

 speak bitterly of such men, it does not arise from any 

 sourness of feeling from having personally suffered by 

 them : in justice to them, I must say they never 

 robbed me; perhaps one trifling circumstance pre- 

 vented it I never gave them the chance. I have said 

 that not one in a hundred of these men keep race- 

 horses. There are a few who keep third or fourth 

 rate horses, and go leather-plating about the country. 

 Of course they make this answer their purpose some- 

 how : but as every man knows that such horses can 

 seldom pay their expenses if they run to win, we may 

 pretty accurately judge by what means they are made 

 to pay in such hands. 



It has been said that racing levels all distinctions 

 of persons. The idea is preposterous that it must 

 necessarily do so more than driving four-horses or 

 keeping a pack of hounds. If Gentlemen choose to 

 associate with the ordinary class of stage-coachmen, 

 make their dress, habits, and language objects of 

 imitation, distinction of persons would be levelled in 

 this instance. If the Owner of Hounds was to make 

 his Huntsman and Whips his companions, or to 

 associate with none but hard-drinking, illiterate, vul- 

 gar bumpkins, he would in his particular case also 

 break down the barrier between the gentleman and 

 the plebeian ; the more so if he chose (as I once saw 

 a Nobleman do) to assist his Whip in very mercilessly 

 flogging a hound, a piece of discipline which, though 

 sometimes necessary, is one that any man with the 

 common feelings of humanity would rather ride a 



