sing of halfpence. The bookmaker does not need to care,
for he is safe whatever may win; but you are defying all the laws of
chance; and, although you may make one lucky hit, you must fare ill in
the end." But no commonsensical talk seems to have any effect on the
insensate fellows who are the betting-man's prey, and thus this precious
sport has become a source of idleness, theft, and vast misery. One
wretch goes under, but the stock of human folly is unlimited, and the
shoal of gudgeons moves steadily into the bookmaker's net. One
betting-agent in France receives some five thousand letters and
telegrams per day, and all this huge correspondence comes from persons
who never take the trouble to see a race, but who are bitten with the
gambler's fever. No warning suffices--man after man goes headlong to
ruin, and still the doomed host musters in club and tavern. They lose
all semblance of gentle humanity; they become mere blockheads--for
cupidity and stupidity are usually allied--and they form a demoralizing
leaven that is permeating the nation and sapping our manhood.

We have only to consider the position of the various dwarfs who bestride
the racehorses in order to see how hard a hold this iniquity has on us.
A jockey is merely a stable-boy after all; yet a successful jockey
receives more adulation than does the greatest of statesmen. A
theatrical manager has been known to prepare the royal box for the
reception of one of these celebrities; some of the manikins earn five
thousand a year, one of them has been known to make twenty thousand
pounds in a year; and that same youth received three thousand pounds for
riding in one race. As to the flattery--the detestable flattery--which
the mob bestows on good horsemen, it cannot be mentioned with patience.
In sum, then, a form of insanity has attacked England, and we shall pay
bitterly for the fit. The idle host who gather on the racecourse add
nothing to the nation's wealth; they are poisonous parasites whose
influence destroys industry, honesty, and common manliness. And yet the
whole hapless crew, winners and losers, call themselves "sportsmen." I
have said plainly enough that every villainous human being seems to take
naturally to the Turf; but unfortunately the fools follow on the same
track as that trodden by the villains, and thus the honest gentlemen who
still support a vile institution have all their work set out in order to
prevent the hawks from making a meal of the