AN 'EMACIATED' JOCKEY. 429 



from which the party was returning; and how lie had 

 neatly turned the matter off by saying he had not 

 seen that race himself, but had only heard of the 

 incident from some one else, and that ' it showed how 

 recklessly people will talk.' I had a very similar 

 experience myself on this occasion. A few days after 

 the race, I was standing on the platform at the 

 Basingstoke Station, by the side of the late Mr. Henry 

 Figes, when a gentlemanly-looking man came up to 

 him and said : 



' Well, I suppose you saw the Derby ?' 

 ' Yes,' was the reply. 



' The jockey who rode Promised Land] continued 

 the other, ' lost the race. He could not sit on his 

 horse, poor fellow, from wasting so hard. He had to 

 be carried from off his horse into the weighing-room 

 to the scales.' 



On being told that I was the attenuated horseman 

 in question, he too, in his turn, was ready with his 

 excuse. For in this case again, he said 'he had only 

 heard so, and really knew nothing of the matter, 

 beins: no racing-man himself.' 



This incident, like the other, not only shows how tales 

 get abroad, but points the moral that no one should 

 speak disrespectfully of another unless he knows the 

 company he is in, or at least is sure of the absolute 

 exactness of the facts he puts forward. I am re- 

 minded by it of an old but, I believe, a true story 

 of a certain adventure which happened to Home 



