let a victim sink to ruin after they have
sucked his substance to the last drop. The very face of a betting-man is
enough to let you know what his soul is like; it is a face such as can
be seen nowhere but on the racecourse or in the betting-club: the last
trace of high thought has vanished, and, though the men may laugh and
indulge in verbal horse-play, there is always something carnivorous
about their aspect. They are sharp in a certain line, but true
intelligence is rarely found among them. Strange to say, they are often
generous with money if their sentimental side is fairly touched, but
their very generosity is the lavishness of ostentation, and they seem to
have no true kindness in them, nor do they appear capable of even
shamming to possess the genuine helpful nature. Eternally on the watch
for prey, they assume the essential nature of predatory animals; their
notion of cleverness is to get the better of somebody, and their idea of
intellectual effort is to lay cunning traps for fools to enter. Yes; the
betting-ring is a bad school of morality, and the man who goes there as
a fool and a victim too, often blossoms into a rogue and a plunderer.

With all this in my mind, I press my readers to understand that I leave
the ethics of wagering alone for the present, and confine my attention
strictly to the question of expediency. What is the use of wearing out
nerve and brain on pondering an infinite maze of uncertainties? The
rogues who command jockeys and even trainers on occasion can act with
certainty, for they have their eye on the very tap-root of the Turf
upas-tree. The noodles who read sporting prints and try to look knowing
can only fumble about among uncertainties; they and their pitiful money
help to swell the triumphs and the purses of rascals, and they fritter
away good brain-power on calculations which have no sound basis
whatever. Let us get to some facts, and let us all hope in the name of
everything that is righteous and of good report that, when this article
is read, some blind feather-brains may be induced to stop ere the
inevitable final ruin descends upon them. What has happened in the
doleful spring of this year? In 1887 a colt was brought out for the
first time to run for the greatest of all Turf prizes. As usual, some
bagatelle of a million or thereabouts had been betted on a horse which
had won several races, and this animal was reckoned to be incapable of
losing: but the untried animal shot out