NEWMARKET 199 



rascality does flourish. Strangely enough, in pass- 

 ing through it, you seem to be familiar with most 

 of the betting men's faces, but you cannot at first 

 remember where you have seen them previously ; 

 when suddenly it flashes across you that you saw 

 most of these faces, or their own brothers', in the 

 dock at the last criminal assizes ; or if you have 

 been over Portland or Dartmoor prisons, or any of 

 those sort of places, that you have seen them there. 

 How so many of them exist seems hard to discover ; 

 but I suspect whenever they have drawn their 

 victims sufficiently, as they consider, they bolt 

 before the race comes off. Another kind of swind- 

 ling has arisen lately. You are perhaps standing 

 somewhere in the ring, when you discover a person 

 is talking to you, and saying that " Of course you 

 have been backing our stable." You look at him 

 with some surprise, as he is a complete stranger to 

 you ; whereupon the man, who is usually tolerably 

 well dressed, and tries to look like a gentleman, 

 apologises for his mistake, " thought you were So- 

 and-so." But, however, he keeps on talking, and 

 you cannot shake him off. At length he declares 

 he knows a certainty for the next race, which you 

 must back, and bothers you so that, to get rid of 

 him for the time, you give him some money to 

 invest, which he does ; and the tip turning out cor- 



