T22 THE BLUE RIBBON OF THE TURF. 



A rogne of the tipster kind carried on, for some 

 twenty days before the great race, no less than eleven 

 such agencies. One of his tricks was to advertise as a 

 governess out of a situation, Avho had, while in her 

 last place, obtained a grand turf secret — no less than 

 the winner of the Derby — while acting as the amanu- 

 ensis of her master ; her terms were a fee of live 

 shillings by post-office order ; another dodge of this 

 person was an advertisement purporting to be inserted 

 by a clergyman, saying that he had obtained the names 

 of the first three horses from a tout whom he had 

 attended on his death-bed, the object of his advertise- 

 ment being to provide a fund for the relief of the said 

 tout's very destitute family. He also posed as a lady's 

 maid who had discovered the name of the winning 

 horse by accident, and who, for a fee of three shillings 

 and sixpence, would tell all she knew. Other plans of 

 this Kapoleon of the art were of a commoner sort, but 

 proved more or less successful. An active tipster takes 

 pains to spread his favours over all the horses likely to 

 run in the race, sending a different selection to each 

 applicant, so that in the event of one of those he has 

 named ' pulling through,' i.e., winning, he can refer to 

 ' the great success of his tip, and ask with confidence 

 for the renewal of past favours, having something 

 good in reserve for one of the big handicaps.' Those 

 were the tipsters of thirty years ago, and even further 

 back. 



During the last fifty 5'ears, as has been hinted, the 

 tips given for successive races for the Derby Stakes 

 w^ould form a curious collection, especially if they were 

 to be liberallv annotated with illustrative remarks. 



