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This deplorable business of wagering has become universal. We talk of the Italians as a gambling nation, but they are not to be compared with the English for recklessness and purblind persistence. I know almost every town in England, and I say without fear that the main topic of conversation in every place of entertainment where the traveller stays is betting. A tourist must of course make for hotel after hotel where the natives of each place congregate; and, if he keeps his ears open, he will find the gambling venom has tainted the life-blood of the people in every town from Berwick to Hastings. It may be asked, “How do these silly creatures who bet manage to obtain any idea of a horse?” They have not the faintest notion of what any given horse is like, but they usually follow the advice of some sharper who pretends to know what is going to win. There are some hundreds of persons who carry on a kind of secret trade in information, and these persons profess their ability to enable any one to win a fortune. The dupes write for advice, enclosing a fee, and they receive the name of a horse; then they risk their money, and so the shocking game goes on.

I receive only too many letters from wives, mothers, and sisters whose loved ones are being drawn into the vortex of destruction. Let me give some rough colloquial advice to the gamblers–“You bet on horses according to the advice of men who watch them. Observe how foolish you are! The horse A is trained in Yorkshire; the horse B at Newmarket. The man who watches A thinks that the animal can gallop very fast, and you risk your money according to his report. But what means has he of knowing the speed of B? If two horses gallop towards the winning-post locked together, it often happens that one wins by about six inches. There is no real difference in their speed, but the winner happens to have a neck slightly longer than the other. Observe that one race-horse–Buccaneer–has been known to cover a mile at the rate of fifty-four feet per second; it is therefore pretty certain that at his very highest speed he could move at sixty feet per second. Very good; it happens then that a horse which wins a race by one foot is about one-sixtieth of a second faster, than the beaten animal. What a dolt you must be to imagine that any man in the world could possibly tell you which of those two brutes was likely to be the winner! It is the merest guess-work; you have all the chances against you and you might as well bet on the tossing 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 pigeons. One of the honest guardians of racing morality resigned in bitter despair some time ago, giving as his reason the assertion that he could trust nobody. Nobody! The man was a great lord, he was totally disinterested and utterly generous, he never betted a penny, and he only preferred to see the superb thoroughbreds gallop. Lavish he was to all about him–and he could trust nobody. It seems that this despairful nobleman had tolerably good reasons for his hasty departure, for we have had such a crop of villainies to reap this year as never was gathered before in the same time, and it appears plain that no animal will be allowed to win any prize unless the foul crew of betting-men accord their kind approval, and refrain from poisoning the brute.