RACING ROGUERIES. 28 1 



Didclle-em he has the ' H.H.' at his mercy." 

 Then comes the corollary, vide the market 

 reports : " Burglar 100 to 8 taken freely ; Diddle- 

 em 14 to I taken and offered ; The Beak 16 to i ; 

 The Artful Dodger 20 to i offered ; Conspirator 

 I'i^ to I offered, forties wanted." 



Such is the state of the odds, when one after- 

 noon at the King's Club, " I'll lay 1,000 to 20 or 

 any part of it against Conspirator," is shouted, 

 but no one responds ; and as all over the country 

 the horse is on offer at these odds, a favourable 

 opportunity is presented for working the com- 

 mission, 50 to I being esteemed a nice price. 



At first a very little only is done in a narrow 

 field ; by-and-by, however, operations are ex- 

 tended, and on a given day the whole country is 

 worked — Manchester, Dublin, Liverpool, Edin- 

 burgh, Glasgow ; every town, in short, where a 

 few ten-pound notes can be got on is communi- 

 cated with through the agents of Job Goodchild, 

 and before the majority of the bookmakers awake 

 to the fact a heavy commission has been executed, 

 and the party stand to win, some thirteen days 

 before the race, a rough sum of over ^45,000 ! 

 On the Saturday previous to the Wednesday 

 on which the race falls to be run, a second 

 trial takes place, Diddle-em is borrowed, as 

 well as another horse which had recently won a 

 biggish handicap ; Burglar also takes part in the 

 trial. It is a near thing, as some would have 

 thought had they seen it, Conspirator seeming to 

 have quite enough to do to beat Diddle-em ; but 

 then, as Conspirator was carrying an additional 

 10 lb. of weight, it really was, as Sweatmore said, 

 a case of " real jam." 



