A few Falls 



to him on account of the repeated taps it has 

 received from the hoofs of falling horses, and if 

 he had made a large fortune he would have 

 deserved every penny. " I am silly," he says ; 

 and he is right. He is compelled to live on a 

 meagre pittance. If he had not one or two 

 good friends he might be forced to shut up 

 shop, as it were, from lack of patronage — I 

 mean sustenance. 



Having regard, therefore, to our inevitable 

 risks, to the severe injuries we often endure, and 

 to the fact that we may be killed any day when 

 we go on the course to ride a " rocky " jumper 

 over the big regulation ditches, I am surely 

 justified in saying that in this case the labourer 

 is worthy of his hire. He may not live long to 

 enjoy the proceeds. The next imperial " purler " 

 may put him out of action. As a fine horseman 

 of this type said to me before the races — we were 

 to ride over fences in the mud and mist at 

 Manchester — " I don't know when I'm going to 

 be killed, of course, but I often feel like death 

 with a horse on top of me in the ditch, and 

 nobody comes too soon to assist in my — ah — 

 resurrection." Festive moments are often culti- 

 vated in such lives so as to dispel grim thoughts 

 of the dangers ahead. A short career is not 



151 



