For three or four years Mrs. Merryweather experienced a prosperous time, customers being numerous, as, by means of her system of sending different horses to different persons one or more batches of them were certain to have had winners sent to them, and these fortunate ones were not slow to sound the trumpet of her fame among their friends, so that on some occasions she enjoyed a run of success. How her career ended I cannot say from personal knowledge. Fred Booth, a frequent visitor to "Jessop's," and afterwards a bookmaker in a considerable way of business, used to relate that she married one of her clients, a wholesale grain merchant in the North of England, who had found his way to her house intent on giving the prophet a very handsome present in return for a double event which she had been lucky enough to send him. The gentleman was greatly surprised on discovering that his tipster was a woman, and a good-looking one, possessed of refined manners; and according to Booth, who spoke as if he knew the gentleman, the story came to a conclusion in the neighbouring church in the most orthodox fashion.
I can from personal knowledge describe the doings of one of the tipping fraternity. About the year 1842 or 1843 (I am not sure which of these years it was), I went one evening to Sadler's Wells Theatre to witness the play of King John, and after the tragedy I supped with one of the actors in his lodgings in Arlington Street, near the theatre. We were joined at table by a fellow-lodger of my friend, who seemed to know nothing but what savoured of the turf, and he was so complaisant as to tell me the names of several horses which were pretty certain to win, and, as I know, did win some of the coming events. Being invited, we shared a bottle of capital claret along with him in his "den," as he called his parlour, in which I noted, scattered about, some dozens of newspapers and especially several copies of Bell's Life.
When opportunity offered I asked my friend who his fellow-lodger was. "Well," he replied, "he is, or rather has been, on the press, having some three or four years ago been connected with one or other of the minor weekly publications; but he is now, he tells me, playing a far more profitable part; he has become a racing tipster and makes a good income at that business. His plan is to select about ten or a dozen of the most likely horses and send a different one to win the race and another, or perhaps two others, to get places, to each of his customers, taking care, of course, to keep a record of what he does, and the names and addresses of those who correspond with him.
"Two or three years ago he made quite a hit with a horse called Little Wonder, which, as I dare say you know, won a Derby. That event, my dear boy, set him on his legs; the landlord of the big gin-palace not far from here, who won a good round sum by means of his tip, gave him a present of fifty pounds, and judging from his correspondence and the many persons who evidently call to consult him he must be making money, but whether or not he may be taking care of it is another matter. I suspect, however, it is with him as it often is with others similarly circumstanced, a case of 'lightly come, lightly go.'"
This plan, often since adopted, of sending different horses for wins and places to the different applicants for tips, was in my opinion quite a stroke of genius; the "fine art" of tipping indeed.
Such reminiscences might be multiplied. I was at one time brought into contact with several adventurers of similar kidney to those described, and there are no doubt aged turfites who could supplement what I have said. Previous even to the period I have been attempting to illustrate there was being published a regular racing circular, the precursor of the Lockets, Judexes, and Walmsleys of a later period, whilst newspaper tipping, especially in the columns of certain of the London weekly newspapers, was greatly extended; in not a few of them a "real poet" gushed forth his prophetic lore, and, as has been stated already, not a few of the poetic predictions perpetrated some fifty years ago were exceedingly felicitous in their diction, considering the sometimes very uncouth matter that had of necessity to be dealt with. I remember reading upon one occasion a collection of such poems in a Bow Street tavern (it was kept, I think, by Baron Nicholson), and of being struck with the halting lines and bald phraseology of three or four of the Seven Dials sort, that used at one time to be hawked round the public-houses at which sporting men were wont to congregate. One sample of the doggerel—I am not speaking now of the graceful contributions published by Bell's Life or The Sunday Times, but of the Cattnach kind, written for recital in public-houses, one of which I well remember—proved a fortunate tip, as it wound up with an excellent prophecy:
All who desire to quench their very great thirst
Must back my bright fancy, brave Pyrrhus the First.
Another of the kind, after dealing with all the animals likely to start for the race (more than a dozen), pronounced boldly in favour of the horse that won, winding up his narrative with the following rather clumsy lines:
Now this fair chance is given, play you your cards right well,
Take my advice—down with your dibs on the bold Dayrell.
I am quoting these lines from memory, and another concluding couplet dwells in my remembrance: