2o6 A MIRROR OF THE TURF. 



of sometimes being called "legs" (blacklegs) by 

 such persons as only made single bets, and ob- 

 jected to the wholesale modes of betting which 

 were coming into fashion. Before Tattersall's was 

 established as a betting centre, many gentlemen 

 made their bets in the way indicated, namely, 

 among themselves and with one another on the 

 racecourse, or at their clubs and in their houses, 

 and in the more primitive days of sport nearly 

 always staking the amounts betted with a third 

 party. As betting on horse-racing increased in 

 magnitude, both in the number of bets made 

 and the amounts betted, the bookmaker, or pro- 

 fessional betting man, became a necessity, and, as 

 usual, demand soon created supply. 



Since it originated, the incidence of betting 

 has undergone several changes. About the end 

 of last century it was greatly the fashion to bet 

 on one horse against the field, and that mode of 

 turf speculation was long prevalent, and did not 

 change into the present more extended way of 

 doing business till the present century was well 

 begun. Such betting was indulged in by the 

 owners of race-horses, their humour finding a 

 vent chiefly in arranging matches between their 

 respective animals for sums of money, ranging 

 perhaps from ^50 to ^5,000 as might be 

 arranged. 



The professional bookmakers who first took 

 the field in opposition to the " gentlemen legs," 

 as a few of the layers of the odds were desig- 

 nated, were not, so far as education and manners 

 were concerned, particularly bright ; but in con- 

 sideration of their being prompt to pay when 

 they lost, their defective education and lack of 



