THE KACE-HORSE. 577 



terest so great \ Those who believe so, must have a higher 

 confidence in the virtues of Newmarket than our knowledge 

 of human nature elsewhere justifies. The first admission on 

 record of a jockey betting on the horse opposed to that which 

 he himself rode, is by the elder Chifney. He lost the race ; 

 but he justifies himself by saying, that he knew the horse he 

 rode was unfit to win. The argument of the jockey is not 

 worth the tassel of his velvet cap ; and the principle con- 

 tended for needs only a little extension to justify every kind 

 of roguery. This very jockey lived to acquire a splendid 

 stud, to build houses, to sport his equipage, and to experience 

 the revolution of fortune's wheel, by dying a beggar. But 

 the training grooms, more trusted still, what can be said of 

 their concern with the gambling speculations, by which their 

 interest and their duty may be placed at variance I What 

 need of their master-key to guard their troughs from the in- 

 troduction of the arsenic or sublimate, or of the live fishes, 

 to shew that the water is as pure as their own thoughts 1 

 A few orders of the head groom on the training-ground, a 

 few doses out of time of Barbadoes aloes, a gentle opiate 

 from the apothecary's shop, all for the health of the horse, 

 will answer every end. Or, should these disgraces not be 

 perpetrated, how many are the means by which races may 

 be lost and won ! A simple breach of confidence may answer 

 the end ; information may be conveyed, sufficient to neutral- 

 ize the hopes of the confiding employer, and the one Book be 

 made square, although the other may become a memorandum 

 of ruin. It were most harsh, most unjust, to say that, 

 amongst the training-grooms of our great courses, there are 

 not, and have not been, many worthy men, as incorruptible as 

 the proudest that can command their services ; and the more 

 to be honoured that they are exposed to such corruptions. It 

 is the system which is here in question, which places men's 

 interest in opposition to their duty, and leads them into a 

 temptation too strong for human weakness. That it is 

 through the inferior instruments employed, that the higher 



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