236 A MIRROR OF THE TURF. 



done business with. Accurate accounts and 

 punctual settlements helped to increase business, 

 so that the bookmaker obtained permission to 

 call at some of the clubs in order to do a 

 little betting with "the swells," and to several 

 of these gentlemen Swindell never hesitated to 

 reveal any really good thing he knew ; but not, 

 of course, till he had served himself. This 

 practice gained him many friends, and was the 

 means of greatly improving his business by 

 increasing his connection, one gentleman recom- 

 mending him to another, and all who did business 

 with him were pleased with his quiet, staid, 

 respectful, but never servile manner. Mr. 

 Swindell knew his place and kept it, which 

 some of his contemporaries and many of his 

 successors failed in doing. 



With increasing experience of racing matters, 

 and having a clear head, and being of sober habits, 

 Mr. Swindell was not long in finding his services 

 in demand as an adviser in some of the mo- 

 mentous turf affairs of the time. Crockford, with 

 whom at times he used when he was making a 

 book to cover his liabilities in the case of horses 

 that he had overlaid, or backed one or two that 

 he thought likely to win, gave him a word or two 

 of recommendation, which resulted in his being 

 occasionally employed to execute commissions on 

 behalf of owners of horses who for good reasons 

 did not wish to appear as backers of their own 

 animals. Among the many who ultimately took 

 him into their confidence were Mr. Merry, of Thor- 

 manby and Doncaster celebrity, and Sir Joseph 

 Hawley. Success usually rewarded the efforts of 

 Mr. Swindell when he undertook to carry through 



