Here is a recent quotation from a well-known English “sporting” paper—one of those, by the way, which conveys “humour” direct from the pit to the front page.
It is about some English jockeys in America—
“Our jockeys are having a hard time, in a way, inasmuch as they are being kept under the closest surveillance by Pinkerton detectives. They are practically caged off from the public, are escorted to the scales and paddock, are not allowed to speak to any one except an employer, and then only when mounting, and their valets must wear a distinctive uniform, with numbers on their sleeves. This is reform with a vengeance, and by no means agreeable to some of our young swells, who are also shadowed after the races.”
“By sports like these are all their cares beguiled!”
Was Goldsmith a prophet?
It is not always easy to remember that the professed aim of the Jockey Club is “the furtherance of the breeding and preservation of the English thoroughbred horse.”
Yet to-day the officers of foreign armies buy Australian walers. They won’t purchase English stallions. I belong to the “Cercle Privée civil et militaire” of Bruges, a great military centre. Every day the General commanding the district and his staff are in the Club. They tell me that English horses are no longer looked upon as they were upon the Continent.
Does not this “give one furiously to think,” as my friend the General said here the other morning? Doping in the interests of the gambling market seems to be beginning to tell!
The gambling industry is organized with consummate skill and great business capacity.
Gambling by post is almost incredibly upon the increase. In Middleburg and Flushing there are twelve huge betting firms. One person employs ninety people in his office, and has his own printing establishment, which is always glutted with work.