BUT BETTING IS. 11 



can, they will never ruin him more than keeping his 

 hunters, if he can afford to keep them : if he cannot, 

 they will, of course, eventually equally ruin him. It 

 is not, therefore, that hunters or race-horses- are in 

 themselves to be considered as ruinous ; but the ruin 

 arises from keeping any thing a man cannot afford to 



keep. 



We will now, however, look at another and very 

 distinct feature in racing affairs (pity it is not more 

 distinct); namely, the betting part of the business. 

 Though " the tug of war" may come when " Greek 

 meets Greek," when the man of honour meets the Greek 

 there is no tug of war at all : the forlorn hope alone 

 advances, advances at the ims de charge ; the forlorn 

 hope is the man of honour, and of course is " blown 

 up." Therefore, although give a man, we will say 

 2000^. a year, and he chooses to keep four horses in 

 training, I should never fear his merely keeping and 

 runninp- them beins; his ruin : let me once see him 

 back his horses in any thing like a heavy bet, from that 

 moment (and particularly should he be so unfortunate 

 as to win) I will back him at 50 to 1 to be ruined in 

 a very short time : indeed a few meetings will sew 

 him up. He has then only one thing left if he means 

 to keep on the Turf; and that is, to throw aside all 

 feelings of honour, turn Leg^ and rob other people. 

 This man certainly has no right to say racing or race 

 horses have been his ruin. True, if he had never 

 kept race-horses, he might not have been led into bet- 

 ting; ; nor would he if he had never been born : so if 

 he chooses to carry the thing back to its first cause, 

 he may with tolerably fair logic affirm that betting 

 has been his ruin — that keeping race-horses brought 

 on betting — and that being born brought on keeping 



