The seven curses of London

by James Greenwood

“The winners of Great Northern, Derby, and Oaks for thirteen stamps, or one event four stamps, with promise of present from winnings. Send a stamped envelope without delay. Gentlemen are requested to act honourably, and send me the promised percentage on the Two Thousand, for the labourer is worthy of his hire.—Address, — Cumberland-street, Chelsea, London.”

Another gentleman, blessed with an amount of coolness and candour that should insure him a competency if every horse were swept off the face of the earth to-morrow, publishes the following; and the reader will please bear in mind that these various advertisements are clipped out of the sporting papers, and copied to the letter:

“Take Notice!!—I never advertise unless I am confident of success. I have now a real good thing for Derby at 100 to 1; sure to get a place, for which 25 to 1 can be obtained.—Enclose 1s. stamps and stamped addressed envelope, and secure this moral.—Remember Perry Down.—Address, H— Post-office, Reading.”

It may be remarked, that everything that is highly promising becomes, in the slang of the advertising tipster, a “moral;” but there are two dictionary definitions of the term—one affecting its relation to good or bad human life, and the other which is described as “the instruction of a fable.” It is possibly in this last sense that the tipster uses the word. “Send for my ‘moral’ on the Great Northern Handicap,” writes Mr. Wilson of Hull. “It is said that the golden ball flies past every man once in his lifetime!” cries “Quick-sight” of John-street, Brixton. “See it in my moral certainty for the Derby. See it, and fail not to grasp it. Fourteen stamps (uncut) will secure it.”

This should indeed be glad news for those unfortunates whose vision has hitherto been gladdened in the matter of golden balls only by seeing them hanging in triplet above the pawnbroker’s friendly door. Fancy being enabled to grasp the golden ball—the ball that is to stump out poverty, and send the bails of impecuniosity flying into space never to return, at the small cost of fourteen postage-stamps! They must be uncut, by the way, or their talismanic virtue will be lost. The worst of it is, that you are unable either to see it or grasp it until Quicksight sees and grasps your fourteen stamps; and if you should happen to miss the golden ball after all, it is doubtful if he would return you your poor one-and-twopence as some consolation in your disappointment. He would not do this, but he would be very happy to give you another chance. His stock of “golden balls” is very extensive. He has been supplying them, or rather the chance of grasping them, at fourteenpence each any time during this five years, and he is doubtless in a position to “keep the ball rolling” (the golden ball) until all his customers are supplied.

By the way, it should be mentioned, that the advertiser last quoted, as well as several others here instanced, terminate their appeals by begging the public to beware of welshers!

Does the reader know what is a “welsher”—the creature against whose malpractices the sporting public are so emphatically warned? Probably he does not. It is still more unlikely that he ever witnessed a “welsher” hunt; and as I there have the advantage of him, it may not be out of place here to enlighten him on both points. A “welsher” is a person who contracts a sporting debt without a reasonable prospect of paying it. There is no legal remedy against such a defaulter. Although the law to a large extent countenances the practice of betting, and will even go the length of lending the assistance of its police towards keeping such order that a multitude may indulge in its gambling propensities comfortably, it will not recognise as a just debt money owing between two wagerers. It is merely “a debt of honour,” and the law has no machinery that will apply thereto. The consequence is, that amongst the betting fraternity, when a man shows himself dishonourable, he is punished by the mob that at the time of the discovery of his defalcation may happen to surround him; and with a degree of severity according to the vindictiveness and brutality of the said mob. On the occasion of my witnessing a “welsher hunt,” I was present at the races that in the autumn of 1868 were held in Alexandra-park at Muswell-hill. As the race for the Grand Prize was decided, looking down from the gallery of the stand, I observed a sudden commotion amongst the perspiring, bawling, leather-lunged gentry, who seek whom they may devour, in the betting-ring below, and presently there arose the magical cry of “Welsher!” I have heard the sudden cry of “Fire!” raised in the night, and watched its thrilling, rousing effect on the population; but that was as nothing compared with it. Instantly, and as though moved by one deadly hate and thirst for vengeance, a rush was made towards a man in a black wide-awake cap, and with the regular betting-man’s pouch slung at his side, and who was hurrying towards the gate of the enclosure. “Welsher! welsher!” cried the furious mob of the ring, making at the poor wretch; and in an instant a dozen fists were directed at his head and face, and he was struck down; but he was a biggish man and strong, and he was quickly on his legs, to be again struck down and kicked and stamped on. He was up again, however, without his hat, and with his face a hideous patch of crimson, and hustled towards the gate, plunging like a madman to escape the fury of his pursuers; but the policeman blocked the way, and they caught him again, and some punched at his face, while others tore off his clothes. One ruffian—I cannot otherwise describe him—plucked at the poor devil’s shirt at the breast, and tore away a tattered handful of it, which he flung over to the great yelling crowd now assembled without the rails; another tore away his coat-sleeves, and tossed them aloft; and in the same way he lost his waistcoat and one of his boots. It seemed as though, if they detained him another moment, the man must be murdered, and so the policeman made way for him to escape.

From the frying-pan into the fire. “Welsher! welsher!” The air rang with the hateful word, and, rushing from the gate, he was at once snatched at by the foremost men of the mouthing, yelling mob outside, who flung him down and punched and beat him. Fighting for his life, he struggled and broke away, and ran; but a betting-man flung his tall stool at him, and brought him to earth again for the twentieth time, and again the punching and kicking process was resumed. How he escaped from these was a miracle, but escape he did; and with the desperation of a rat pursued by dogs, dived into an empty hansom cab, and there lay crouched while fifty coward hands were stretched forward to drag him out, or, failing in that, to prog and poke at him with walking-sticks and umbrellas. At last, a mounted policeman spurred his horse forward and came to the rescue, keeping his steed before the place of refuge. Then the furious mob, that was not to be denied, turned on the policeman, and only his great courage and determination saved him from being unhorsed and ill-treated. Then other police came up, and the poor tattered wretch, ghastly, white, and streaming with blood, was hauled out and dragged away insensible, with his head hanging and his legs trailing in the dust, amid the howling and horrible execrations of five thousand Englishmen.

The next consideration was what to do with him. To convey him off the premises was impossible, since a space of nearly a quarter of a mile had to be traversed ere the outer gate could be reached. There was no “lock-up” at the new grand stand, as at Epsom and elsewhere. Nothing remained but to hustle him through a trap-door, and convey him by an underground route to a cellar, in which empty bottles were deposited. And grateful indeed must have been the stillness and the coolness of such a sanctuary after the fierce ordeal he had so recently undergone. Whether water was supplied him to wash his wounds, or if a doctor was sent for, is more than I can say. There he was allowed to remain till night, when he slunk home; and within a few days afterwards a local newspaper briefly announced that the “unfortunate man, who had so rashly roused the fury of the sporting fraternity at Alexandra races, was dead”!

To a close observer of the system that rules at all great horseracing meetings, nothing is so remarkable as the child-like reliance with which the general public intrusts its bettings to the keeping of the “professionals,” who there swarm in attendance. In the case of the bettors of the “ring” they may be tolerably safe, since it is to the interest of all that the atmosphere of that sacred enclosure, only to be gained at the cost of half-a-guinea or so, should be kept passably sweet. Besides, as was mentioned in the case of the unfortunate “welsher” at Alexandra races, the said enclosure is bounded by high railings; and the salutary effect of catching and killing a “welsher” is universally acknowledged. As regards the betting men themselves, it enables them to give vent to reckless ferocity that naturally waits on disappointed greed, while the public at large are impressed with the fact that strict principles of honour amongst gamblers really do prevail, whatever may have been said to the contrary. But at all the principal races the greatest number of bets, if not the largest amounts of money, are risked outside the magic circle. It is here that the huckster and small pedlar of the betting fraternity conjure with the holiday-making shoemaker or carpenter for his half-crown. For the thousandth time one cannot help expressing amazement that men who have to work so hard for their money—shrewd, hard-headed, sensible fellows as a rule—should part with it on so ludicrously flimsy a pretext. Here—all amongst the refreshment bustle, from which constantly streamed men hot from the beer and spirit counters—swarmed hundreds of these betting harpies; some in carts, but the majority of them perched on a stool, each with a bit of paper, on which some name was printed, stuck on his hat, and with a money-bag slung at his side, and a pencil and a handful of tickets. This was all. As often as not the name and address on the betting man’s hat or money-bag was vaguely expressed as “S. Pipes, Nottingham,” or “John Brown, Oxford-street;” and who Pipes or Brown was not one man in a thousand had the least idea. Nor did they inquire, the silly gulls. It was enough for them they saw a man on a stool, ostensibly a “betting man,” bawling out at the top of his great, vulgar, slangy voice what odds he was prepared to lay on this, that, or t’other; and they flocked round—enticed by terms too good to be by any possibility true, if they only were cool enough to consider for a moment—and eagerly tendered to the rogue on the stool their crowns and half-crowns, receiving from the strange Mr. Pipes or Mr. Brown nothing in exchange but a paltry little ticket with a number on it. This, for the present, concluded the transaction; and off went the acceptor of the betting man’s odds to see the race on which the stake depended. In very many cases the exchange of the little ticket for the money concluded the transaction, not only for the present, but for all future; for, having plucked all the gulls that could be caught, nothing is easier than for Pipes to exchange hats with Brown and to shift their places; and the pretty pair may with impunity renounce all responsibility, and open a book on the next race on the programme. To be sure it is hard to find patience with silly people who will walk into a well; and when they follow the workings of their own free will, it is scarcely too much to say they are not to be pitied. But when a cheat or sharper is permitted standing room that he may pursue his common avocation, which is to cheat and plunder the unwary public, the matter assumes a slightly different complexion.