FOURTH PERIOD: VICTORIA 231 



command of the odds, and has to desert to the 

 enemy in order to gain his bread. 



Mark how dangerous is the professional ' layer 

 of odds,' whether he calls himself an * accountant,' 

 or a ' commissioner,' or a ' bookie,' or a ' man 

 and a brother.' He makes it easy for the young 

 ' backer ' (whether young in years or in experi- 

 ence) to do systematically what might otherwise, 

 because of the difficulties in the way of obtain- 

 ing 'odds,' never become habitual, and might be 

 perfectly or comparatively innocuous. Here is 

 what the ' Druid,' a sporting writer whom even 

 the ' bookie ' professes to read, mark, learn, and 

 inwardly digest, has written on the subject of 

 betting : ' Not five men in twenty can afford to 

 lose, and certainly not one in twenty afford to 

 win. ... A young man drawing his first winnings 

 is like a tiger tasting his first blood ; he seldom 

 stops again till he is brought to a dead-lock as a 

 defaulter. ... It may be a very Arcadian notion, 

 but still we hold that, to really enjoy sport, a 

 man should never go on to a racecourse more 

 than thirteen or fourteen picked afternoons in 

 the course of the year, and never bet a penny.' 



