OTHER SEATS OF HORSE-RACING. 57 



of their own money. There is no charge of any 

 kind made for admission to the heath during the 

 four days of Ascot, and yet the value of the stakes 

 run for there in 1 881, as has been stated, amounted 

 to more than thirty-two thousand pounds. 



The principal shareholders of the Man- 

 chester racing company are reputed to be book- 

 makers, and if the meeting did not pay as a 

 meeting, there is such a plethora of gambling, 

 of laying and backing, as, in the four days at 

 Whitsuntide alone, will be represented in hun- 

 dreds of thousands of pounds. It is quite 

 certain, in regard to this racecourse, that the 

 amount of money taken at the gates, no matter 

 what may be said, is really enormous ; on the 

 Cup day, the mere shillings of head money, 

 not taking into account the receipts of the 

 stands, will be over five thousand pounds. 



The controversy which has raged at intervals 

 over the establishment of what have in a some- 

 what contemptuous spirit been called " gate 

 meetings," has not ceased. " Prejudice," say they 

 who approve of this system of racing, is "ill to kill"; 

 but it is far better that a race meeting should be 

 made self-supporting than that all kinds of con- 

 temptible begging should be resorted to to keep 

 up the pastime in the half-hearted way that it 

 used to be kept up in many localities, by appeals 

 to the lord of the manor and other country 

 gentlemen, by donations from licensed victuallers 

 and miscellaneous shopkeepers who are supposed 

 to reap pecuniary benefit from the bringing 

 together of crowds of people to witness the sport, 

 ^or by doles from interested railway companies. 



It would be easy to prove that all the sue- 



