HERMIT S REPORTED ACCIDENT. 185 
days before Bath races (the week fatal to many a Derby 
favourite), the canards so industriously circulated as to the 
real cause of the deadly opposition he had mct with, were to 
the effect : that he had broken down, had broken a blood-vessel 
in his head, and I know not what; but that, to a certainty, he 
was hors de combat, and on the eventful Derby day would be 
an absentee, as his forlorn price of 100 to one clearly fore- 
shadowed. The astute believers in this state of things wanted 
to know what was the good of keeping the horse puppet-like 
dangling before the eyes of an enlightened public after the 
last guinea had been got, and there was no chance of resus- 
citating him, and added that now, if only for appearance sake, 
he should be struck out. But Mr. Chaplin (the owner), that 
straightforward gentleman and fearless sportsman, ever as 
anxious to please and serve his friends as himself, thought 
and did otherwise, and decided to run the horse that all might 
see how false the rumours were. He ran and won. 
Instances like these could be multiplied ad infinitum. But 
they are enough. They show clearly the incisiveness of the 
gallant Admiral’s remark already quoted: “Losers would 
always much sooner make out the rest of the world to be 
rogues than themselves fools.” Racing men are as anxious to 
run their horses as ever the public are to see them run; and for 
the best of all possible reasons, namely—it does not pay to 
keep entering them without doing so. The cause of so many 
absentees is, not dislike on the part of the owners to bring 
their horses out, but the action of the public who prevent the 
owner obtaining a reasonable price ; for he, under such circum- 
stances, prefers scratching to running his horse to his own 
injury. The public complain, but the remedy is in their 
hands and in their hands only. Let them follow and not take 
precedence of owners, and we should then see larger fields at 
