244 A MIRROR OF THE TURF. 



" Backers," as they are called, go down before 

 the bookmakers like so many ninepins, whilst the 

 layers of the odds to all comers continue to stand 

 up and grow rich. 



Impressed with that view of the situation, 

 Gully speedily became a professional betting man, 

 or "leg," as such persons were then termed, and, 

 by paying intelligent attention to business, met 

 with prompt and extraordinary success. He 

 commenced at a fortunate time — ^just, indeed, as 

 betting was beginning to be recognised as a 

 business, and when men were awakening more 

 and more to the fact that it was better for them 

 to deal with a professional layer of the odds all 

 round than to make bets with each other. Gully 

 speedily attracted attention in the ring. Gentle- 

 men who had taken notice of his native shrewdness 

 and capacity for figures entrusted him with com- 

 missions to back their horses, so that, in a manner, 

 fortune was thrust upon him, the many secrets 

 he became possessed of in this line of business 

 enabling him to work in a powerful light, whilst 

 his less fortunate brethren of the ring had to carry 

 on their betting work pretty much in the dark. 



The commissions with which he was so 

 frequently entrusted showed Gully what were 

 the expectations of owners, and not only which 

 horses might win, but also some as well which 

 were sure to be beaten ; because on the turf 

 there was then, as there is now, two kinds of 

 " commissions " — one to back a given horse, or 

 it might be two or three horses, for the same 

 event, the other to lay against animals meant to 

 lose. With "such dispositions of things" in his 

 favour, he is a poor hand at the business who 



