228 HORSE-RACING IN ENGLAND 



win, yet ever afterwards it winked — notwithstand- 

 ing the protests of Admiral Rous and others — at 

 the 'declaration to win,' which has now been 

 expressly sanctioned by a rule, and which means 

 neither more nor less than that you 7nay start 

 horses without intending to win with them ; and 

 in 1842 it made an announcement (still in force) 

 that ' the Jockey Club and the Stewards thereof 

 will henceforth take no cognizance of any dispute 

 or claims in respect to bets,' This is a very 

 different thing from ' ignoring betting ' (which is 

 the popular interpretation of the rule), and very 

 difficult to reconcile with che obligation, which the 

 Club has deliberately taken upon itself, to ' warn 

 off' persons who are reported to it by the heads 

 of the gambling department as being defaulters. 

 Most people would think that this is taking very 

 great notice indeed of betting and the disputes 

 connected therewith. 



The spread of the betting nuisance (if anything 

 beyond the daily reports of the newspapers, the 

 daily lamentations of wives and mothers, and 

 sorrowing friends and relatives, and the piteous 

 appeals sometimes addressed to gentlemen as 



