RACING ROGUERIES. 297 



demoralised, and that many of them bet on the 

 sly, making use of information which has been 

 obtained in their official capacity, and which they 

 ought not to divulge. Ingenious plans have 

 been devised by these persons in order to utilise 

 messages forwarded from one turfite to another, 

 or from a " tout " to his employer. 



Say that a message is sent from an agent in 

 London to a bookmaker in Liverpool, that Judas, 

 an acceptor, is being heavily backed for the 

 Cesarewitch, and that from being at 50 to i the 

 previous night he is now at 100 to 6 ; the clerk 

 will delay the message on some pretence or other 

 for ten or twelve minutes, so that a confederate 

 may have time to visit one or two bookmakers 

 and obtain the longer odds, well knowing that the 

 effect of the message will be to make the horse 

 named a prime favourite in the local betting, so 

 that if 50 to I can be obtained, a profit may be 

 made by retailing the bet at a third of the odds. 

 That represents one mode of procedure ; another 

 plan of petty swindling which has often been tried 

 with success is for the clerks of one town to get 

 from those of another town the result of some 

 important race with great rapidity, and knowing 

 the result, have matters so planned that a con- 

 federate will be able to back or lay against, as the 

 case may be, the actual winner or some of the 

 losing horses, with persons who think it too soon 

 for the decision of the race to be known. The 

 plan of working this kind of fraud is for a series 

 of signals to be agreed upon in order to denote 

 the winners and losers in a race. The confederate 

 then proceeds to the Club or bookmakers' chamber, 

 half an hour or twenty minutes before the time 



