WITH THE PROPHETS. 173 



occupied by a vast population, and there was 

 always a sufficient percentage of its inhabitants 

 so interested in racing as to find employment 

 for half-a-dozen tipsters, in addition to those 

 engaged on such newspapers of the time as 

 kept prophets, some of whom were " verse- 

 jinglers " of no mean capacity, as a selection 

 from their poetic prognostications would prove, 

 were a collection of the best of them to be 

 made and published with the necessary notes of 

 explanation. 



The first of the prophets to whom I will 

 refer were a man and a woman, both persons 

 of ability, able to assume a variety of characters, 

 and by doing so carry on their little game in- 

 dustriously from season to season. There was no 

 collusion between them, however; they were in no 

 way connected. 



The man, before he began work as a 

 tipster, had been for several years under butler 

 in one of the big Pall Mall clubs, and having 

 drawn the winner of the Chester Cup in a 

 plethoric " sweep" — many of which used to be, 

 and I believe still are, organised in London in 

 connection with the more important races — he 

 found himself in possession of sufficient funds, 

 including the money he had saved in service, to 

 become lessee of a public-house in a little street 

 off Fetter Lane, in which for a time he did well, 

 so well that he took courage and married, his 

 wife being able to assist him in his business. 



It is almost needless to say, with a landlord 

 possessed of a taste for the turf, his house came 

 in time to be much frequented by the smaller 

 fry of sporting men having tastes in common 



