BETTING BUDS OF THE SEASON 'FIFTY-FOUR, BY CRAVEN. "On ne s'arrête pas dans un si beau chemin." CHORUS: Air" Rule Britannia." When racing first at Sport's command Arose from out sack-running at a fair, This was the charter-the charter of the Stand "Legs" and "Levanters" had no business there. Rule! Rule, Olympia! Olympia rules the knaves! Britons never shall be "Lists" or "Lotteries" slaves. There is sweet sympathy between the vernal and the green. Harehunting is over, and it is Spring. We may cull seasonable inferences from blossoming bucolics, and sound suggestions from social colouring. Jolly Green may be a "spoon," but he is not a lax impropriator of silver forks. March opens with "Lent," and closes with Lady Day: begins with charity, and ends with grace....... "Nunquam aliud Natura-aliud Sapientia duxit." * "Together let us beat this ample field, Try what the open--what the covert yield; It is possible, you see, for a Pope to be a philosopher. Thus, then, while princes and potentates-men and monsters, tag-rag and bobtailare "running a muck" à la Alexander the Great, let us pass an hour de l'esprit sociale after the recipe of Alexander the Small. Allons! "Togcther let us range the fields"-"fairy rings," where "Ricardo Greenhorn," Esq."-whose posy is "me duce, tutus eris"-shall be our "guide, philosopher, and friend." Alas! poor Emerald Knight Errant! thy fortune has been a 66 tight fit," as the monkey observed when he was in a delicate situation. "They skinned me alive like an eel; so they did, the scoundrels-"one day he bemoaned him to a friend ;-" but now, if they were to hold me up by the heels, and swing me about for a week, they could'nt shake sixpence out of me.”. ...... A direful doom, a doleful ditty: Hark to his plight, and give your pity. "I have heard it stated that sufficient Greenhorns' arrived in London daily to occupy an average railway train, for the purpose of filling up the vacancies created by those who have either quitted the scene or purchased their experience.......... I will shortly state some of Youatt W. Gray's predictions; although I did not at the time part with my money on receiving them. One of his advertisements, repeated daily in a morning journal-(will you take £1,000 to 6d. it wasn't the Morning Victimizer?)-stated that he had named 226 winners in twenty weeks.' If this was correct, the time must have been long before I remitted my twelve and six; for when he did by any accident seleet a winner, it was for some race about which there could not have existed a couple of opinions. For the Warwick Handicap he sent Little Davie" -it was won by Little Fawn; for the which he deserved being sent to Davie's locker. "For the Committee Stakes, Antonia-Grub won it in a canter 'Antonia! where's my pocket-handkerchief?' by two lengths. For the Welter Cup, Sally-Janey won the race... For the Richmond Handicap he sent Young England and Grapeshotthe latter won."....... Was there no Grapeshot wherewith to knell this gammon Gray-his elegy? Did our Ricardo sit for Goldsmith's "Good-natured Man?” Is he the veritable VERT VERT, of the Théâtre Comique? Having introduced a surfeit of modern instances, he bitterly soliloquizes-" To be, or not to be? that is the question.""I should like to know, supposing I had literally followed the whole of his advice, and regard being had to the short price of the winner, and staking" (qy., impaling !)—" equal amounts upon all the animals, what sum I should have netted"-(" netted, " indeed, " with a hook!") But, to proceed. "For the Sefton Handicap, at Liverpool, Gray sent Miss Peddie and Candlewick, with Maid of Team Valley for a place-it was won by St. Michael, and the others were nowhere.". [Passing the details of this passing pitiful catalogue-"all tears"-and finishing with the faint fun of-for the Prendergast-prendre, aghast!] favoured me with Champagne; it proved "Gooseberry." (We listen as he groans.] "I might multiply these certainties' tenfold, but the above form an unusually good sample of the bulk. After these statements then, fortified by the whole of the original documents in my possession procured in the same way that all other persons obtained them, regardless of expense '-can anybody believe it possible that some of the same tribe are again in the field this ample field '-hoping to succeed, as Howard and Clinton said of (Trickey Dock'), in putting a little salt on the tails of the fledglings'? It may be that all things are destined to pursue a systematic course; that the 'gudgeons' and the young birds' must be entrapped, despite every proper effort He which may be made to save them; but they will have themselves alone to blame to any inconvenience sustained after the present day." Years ago the subject of this sympathetic symphony was given in these pages. The Variations, by the composer, Ricardo Greenhorn, Esq., are here appended to it. "But these things are now matters of history-as far, at all events, as public exhibition is concerned: in private, to some limited extent, it is probable that the practices are still continued. The Sharps' may now proceed to devour one another-(the Anthropophagi!)-in the absence of daintier food-(how strange that nobody, till now, was made aware that human nature was a bonbouche!).. I hope to see some well-organized and respectable Clubs, where persons of repute may meet, and find in the honour and standing -(right up and straight down, and no mistake')-of each other, a sure guarantee that sporting transactions may legitimately be carried out(if the circumbendibus sporting transactions' means bets-they must be limited, 'legitimately,' to sums not exceeding ten pounds)-free from illegal doings of every kind, and without the incessant boast of evading the ever-talked-of New Act....... In properly regulated Hotels and Taverns, over the social cup, other classes-(q. e. d. of classes other than those of persons of repute')-may_assemble....... The Hotel and Tavern Department, The Fourth Estate and The Mercantile World furnished the more fortunate of List Keepers. The others were composed of Bill Stealers, Broken-down Gamblers, Macemen (?), Dilapidated Lawyers' Clerks, Horse Chaunters, Copers, Thimble-riggers, Card and Skittle Sharpers, Fraudulent Insolvents, Uncertificated Bankrupts, and Duffers of every kind....... 66 "Hoc genus omne Mæstum et solicitum est.".... Against the whole of this last-mentioned lot, in whatever disguise they may show, I particularly caution your readers, although business may be carried on according to Act of Parliament at their private residences." ("Naso suspendis adunco"-anon)..... I hope the Greenhorns will avoid them as a pestilence: neither they, nor their colleagues the prophets, have any other "certainty" than that of victimizing the unwary, and laughing afterwards at his confiding, and, in these days, almost incomprehensible gullibility.". Thus have I chaperoned my verdant visionary to his ultimatum: his positive, comparative, and superlative climax of scoundrelism, from the Bill Stealer to the Greenhorn, and, vice versa, from the Prophet to the Duffer... According to the proverb, "Turn about is fair play;" so he must lend me his ear. But he need have no dismay at the proposed lecture; because I preachee-" he that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread; but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough "in races it is not the large stride or high lift that makes the speed" it doesn't follow that I will " floggee, too."...Here is a pretty little prattling pasquinade for him, à la Charles Dickens...... A few days after Candlemas Day, 1854, Mr. Alderman Accurate officiated as sitting magistrate at Grilled Hall. The first charge on the sheet was against one Tobias Tipple, " for that he was drunk on the premises of Boniface, of the Stirrup-Cup, in Leather-lane." Mr. Cut appeared for the prosecution, and Mr. Thrust for the defence. "Now, what's all this about?" inquired the worthy Alderman. "This fellow has dared to be drunk on the premises of Mr. Boniface," replied lawyer Cut. 66 I don't see how you're going to shew that," interrupted his learned friend; "or even if you could persuade his worship to believe what is impossible, that it would do your case any service,' "What are you driving at?" cried Cut. "I'm not driving at all," retorted Thrust. "Then what do you mean?" said Cut. "That I've experience, wine, tea, and any liquid may be drunk;' but whoever knew that a man may be drunk"-(I'm leading him into a mess!)-Thrust ? Here the city judge lost his solemn sobriety of demeanour, and, not improbably to promote the fun, asked the advocate for the prisoner, "Never mind that; but how about your second plea?" "Why, your Worship, admitting, for argument of law's sake, that Tipple was inebriated, the Stirrup-Cup, where the assumed offence is represented to have occurred, is a beer-shop, deliberately declaring on its sign-board, To be drunk on the premises." This fairly capsized the sitting magistrate's countenance; and, speaking hurriedly to the clerk, "There, fine him five shillings, and let him go!" he turned good-humouredly to the belly-gerents, and said: "How odd it is, that while you gentlemen were tilting on legislative lexicography, I was reading in the Tempora Mutantur a report of The Queen's Procession to open Parliament. The article, as usual, described the order of the cavalcade. Certain equipages, containing officers of the household, went first; and then came, conveying HER MAJESTY and PRINCE ALBERT, the splendid state coach, with its eight magnificent cream-coloured horses, always used by the Sovereign upon occasions of high form, pomp, and circumstance.' Now, I have heard people— looked upon as adroit linguists-contend that to use' was 'to accustom' -to employ at second-hand'-and otherwise to define the expression precisely as I should not. May I take the liberty of troubling you with a question-What is the absolute-the Medes and Persians-application of the word?" "The trouble," said Thrust, with a smile and a slight bow, "is a pleasure. Legislative phraseology is not a conversible convention : it is adopted and meant to be received in the spirit, not in the letter, of language controversy. Acts of Parliament are constantly misconstrued by those not learned in the law, not because of their intrinsic obscurity, but because the ceremonial of declaration in which they are habitually constructed surrounds their purpose with a perplexity of profuse reiteration that craves wary walking.' I have in my pocket a Bill recently passed, whose prodigality of phrase will point the moral of this theory, and prove that the true practice of interpretation for such compositions is to read, mark, and learn them until their exuberance of repetition is pruned down to the proportions of the precis... With your grace, I will quote my proposition from it... 66 6 Clause the First of An Act' for the Suppression of Betting "No house, office, room, or other place shall be opened, kept, or used for the purpose of the owner, occupier, or keeper thereof, or any person using the same, or any person procured or employed by or acting for or on behalf of such owner, occupier, or keeper, or any person using the same, or of any person having the care or management, or in any manner conducting the business thereof, betting with persons resorting thereto or for the purpose of any money or valuable thing being received by or on behalf of such owner, occupier, keeper, or person as aforesaid, as or for the consideration for any assurance, undertaking, promise, or agreement, express or implied, to pay or give thereafter any money or valuable thing on any event or contingency of or relating to any horse race, or other race, fight, game, sport, or exercise, or as or for the consideration for securing the paying or giving by some other person of any money or valuable thing on any such event or contingency as aforesaid and every house, office, room, or other place opened, kept, or used for the purposes aforesaid, or any of them, is hereby declared to be a common nuisance, and contrary to law.'-Such is the letter of the Act anno decimo sexto et decimo septimo VICTORIA REGINE, cap. CXIX, or, as a laconic legislative Lord expresses it, the roundabout rodomontade of judicial rhapsodical rigmarole.' The plain English of the Parliamentary provision against the misprision of maceing' is- No house or other place shall be opened or used for the purpose of any person betting with persons resorting thereto every house or other place so used is hereby declared to be contrary to law.'... This is the spirit of the enactment, whose object, as set out in the preamble of the statute, is 'the suppression of gaming of late sprung up, tending to the injury and demoralization of improvident persons." Il n'y a rien que les hommes aiment meux conserver, et qu'ils menagent moins que leur propre vie." "To be without honesty," says Lord Shaftesbury, "is, in effect, to be without natural affection or sociableness of any kind. The least step into a baseness changes the character and value of a life; and if life be not a very dear thing indeed, he who has refused to live a villain, and has preferred death to a base action, has been a gainer by the bargain."...The racing season has now set in for 'FIFTY-FOUR right earnestly, yet in the weekly reports of the Turf rendezvous at Tattersalls' they universally return, "A thin muster and a quiet afternoon." Here, we may assume, is allegorically figured the Olympic convention as it is, in the spirit and the letter. If "bad begins," why should it be permitted that the more ungracious section of the sentence still prevail" and worse remains behind"? The mission of this mandate is to repeal the convention for pocketpicking, under the pretence of promoting a great national sport-to restrain young male milliners from dealing clandestinely with their master's money, and clearing them out to feed-fat the sweepings of the Swell Mob.......... As to any intention of interfering with sound sporting speculation-the salutary stimulant of "gentlemen of enterprize and spirit"-one might as well expect the Privy Council to prescribe a rubber of short whist, or the Home Secretary to issue his warrant against Brooks. "Those hideous turf excrescences," said, the other day, the most experienced and distinguished modern writer on English racing-"those hideous turf excrescences and hangers-on of the racing world, which the betting lists fostered, have been, by the extinction of the latter, got rid of to a great extent, and the odium which attached to the system alto |