220 THE BLUE RIBBON OF THE TURF. 



the speed of their horses, were able on some occasions 

 to beat the stage-coaches by as much as twenty-five 

 minutes, which enabled those who had arranged the 

 express to do a good deal of business, as much, at any 

 rate, as paid all expenses and left ' a bit of profit,' 

 more especially in one or two 3'-ears in which a pretty 

 hot favourite happened to be beaten. During the 

 'thirties' and ' forties' a good deal of quiet betting took 

 place on the Derby and some other races in Edinburgh 

 at certain well-known (to the initiated) places of ren- 

 dezvous. The ' Haddington horse express,' as it came 

 to be called, was planned in one of these, the leading 

 spirit of the enterprise being a well-known hotel-keeper 

 of the Modern Athens, who, along wiih two or three 

 companions, shared the profits. All that was done 

 was very simple. As a matter of course, there would 

 be from sixty to a hundred people waiting in the 

 difi'erent rooms of the Black Bull and other hotels for 

 the news, most of whom had backed something for 

 the race, and betting would go on till the mail reached 

 the post-office. Meantime, the two or three in ' the 

 know' had ample opportunity of laying against the 

 horse that had lost the race, and backing the one that 

 had won it. The mode of anticipation just described 

 was carried en with varying degrees of success for 

 several years, 



* Bob Smart,' of the Gun Tavern — ' Money Bob,' as 

 he was afterwards called by intimate friends and 

 _ „ ,,, others for whom he discounted bills— 



The \\ ouulbe 



Biters bitteu. nscd to tcll about liow tlic trickstcrs who 

 ran the Haddington express were themselves ' done ' 



