RACING REFORM. 327 



probability a solution of the various problems 

 involved when the death of a nominator takes 

 place may some day be arrived at, when the 

 proposal of "deposit your nomination money" 

 may after all be found to be the best way out 

 of the difficulty. With the payment of such 

 large sums of ready money as would be involved, 

 there would undoubtedly be a considerable falling 

 off in the entries of certain classes of races — 

 which many turf men think would prove an 

 advantage. 



Other disturbing matters which require to 

 be dealt with by the Jockey Club are as pressing 

 as these which have just been noticed. The 

 " rough " and " welshing " element was never so 

 rampant on some of our racecourses as it is at 

 present, and the turf of late, even at Newmarket, 

 has been invaded by brigades of blackguards, 

 who, by means of the numerous lines of railways, 

 find easy access to scenes from which they were 

 excluded in former years by distance and cost of 

 transport. The presence of numberless bands of 

 insolent roughs, some of them in intimate con- 

 federacy, it is said, with the lower class of book- 

 makers, has not tended to the elevation of horse- 

 racing, nor does it add to the good name of its 

 votaries. 



The complaints that find utterance as to the 

 blackguardism which takes place on some race- 

 courses are painful to contemplate. The welsher, 

 in many places, seems not only to be tolerated, 

 but encouraged. If a complaint be made of the 

 most barefaced robbery by these persons, there is, 

 at some meetings, no redress. The welsher is 

 to all intents and purposes a thief under another 



