2 THE ENGLISH TURF 



I remember, in my schoolboy days, being in London at 

 Easter, and much interested in a horse which was to run 

 at Durham on Easter Monday. No account of Durham 

 races was forthcoming in the London newspapers on the 

 following morning, and in those days provincial news- 

 papers did not reach London until late in the evening, 

 and even then it was no easy matter to obtain them. I 

 spent an hour or two among the West End newsagents, 

 and overhauled a great number of papers, but only succeeded 

 in obtaining the result of the race by paying a visit to a 

 certain public-house the name of which I forget situated 

 somewhere off the Farringdon Road, to which I was recom- 

 mended by the proprietor of a newspaper shop in Pall Mall 

 Place. That was in the days of the lists, and the publican 

 to whom I applied told me that he was spending over 1 

 per racing day in having the results wired to him from the 

 racing towns. 



Nowadays the result of every race, no matter how un- 

 important that race may be, is on sale in London and in 

 every other large town in the kingdom within a few minutes 

 of the decision of the event. The clubs, reading-rooms, and 

 even many of the hotels are supplied with the results through 

 " the tape," and no one who lives within touch of any large 

 centre of population need be without an evening paper 

 containing a report of the day's doings. Two daily 

 racing papers are published in London, and one in Man- 

 chester, while full reports of all the meetings, with criticisms 

 on the running, are given in a large majority of the non- 

 sporting morning papers, published either in London or 

 the provinces, the exception being, indeed, difficult to find. 

 In the North-country towns, too, a single sheet is everywhere 

 on sale shortly before noon, filled with telegrams from the 

 course, with the probable starters for each race, the selections 

 of all the best informed morning papers, and the little 

 regarded " latest betting," which is an epitome of the prices 

 offered on the day's races at various clubs, and which, I 

 believe, is of the very smallest account. These "tissues," 

 as they are called, appear to have a huge sale in Lancashire, 

 Yorkshire, and the Midlands. 



