2 72 HORSE-RACING IN ENGLAND 



odds ' on the nod ' (which the Legislature permits 

 or at any rate does not forbid) ; and the descent 

 to Avernus is proverbially easy, so that the 

 ' backer ' often finds himself landed very soon in 

 'default.' And it is said, by authorities who ought 

 to know what they are talking about, that nobility 

 and gentry will go on in default unblushingly from 

 year to year, and that the long-suffering ' bookie ' 

 will go on betting with them and refrain from 

 taking such steps as it is in his power to take to 

 protect himself, for fear of offending the defaulters' 

 ' high connections ' who not only bet with him 

 but * part.' 



What will be the end of it all nobody of course 

 can say ; but perhaps the storm will come and the 

 crash will take place some day, after which the 

 prices paid for thorough-bred horses, old and 

 young, the 'public money' given by competing 

 race-course companies, and the ' betting mania,' 

 will be reduced within as reasonable limits as can 

 ever be considered to bound a mania, to the great 

 advantage of a fine sport and to the great im- 

 provement of the English thorough-bred, eman- 

 cipated from the use to which he is now too often 

 put, partly as a mere instrument of gambling. 



