222 A MIRROR OF THE TURF. 



at race meetings by acting as a peripatetic tipster. 

 Many stories of a like kind are doubtless known 

 to persons who are acquainted with the ever- 

 changing incidents of our race meetings. 



Apropos to betting for cash, one of the most 

 singular utterances that has ever appeared against 

 the "principle" of betting for ready money is 

 that of Mr. William Day, published in one of the 

 monthly miscellanies, and in which he describes 

 that mode of betting as a " pernicious system," 

 as "the greatest pest of society, the current 

 evil of the day." Further, Mr. Day says the 

 practice of ready money betting is "a blot on 

 the nationality of every Englishman!" Un- 

 fortunately for himself, Mr. Day stultifies his 

 own arguments against ready money betting by 

 his advocacy of the Pari-mutuel plan of backing 

 horses, which is a ready money system of betting 

 par excellence, the adoption of which Mr. Day 

 thinks would put a stop to reckless speculation, 

 as, indeed, would ready money betting conducted 

 through the medium of the bookmakers (who 

 ought to be licensed). 



The writer of these pages, as is obvious 

 enough, is quite of the same opinion as Mr. 

 Day, that " so long as a man can go into the 

 ring and bet his untold thousands upon race 

 after race, not having as many hundreds to pay 

 his losses with, so long as he can find usurers 

 to supply him with the needful to be paid on the 

 Monday after, then so long, too, will he continue 

 to bet, little caring what he pays for the con- 

 venience ; as things are he is compelled to 

 raise funds to save his credit and his respect 

 among his aristocratic associates, but in the 



