L. Rivers, 1 Conway Cottages, Lower Station Road, Newmarket.
J. J. Kirk, Southwick, and 115 Queen’s Road, Brighton.
Manser, 123 Holloway Road, London.
Old-fashioned race-course welshing is, I believe, not quite so prevalent as it used to be. The up-to-date welsher adopts a less hazardous plan of campaign. Instead of running the gauntlet of an angry mob on the race-course, he does his swindling more sedately in an office, where he is out of the reach of his victims. Calling himself a commission agent or a Turf accountant, he advertises in the Press or sends out circulars inviting backers to open accounts with him. When they lose he takes their money; when they win he refuses to pay up. I cannot say that I have any sympathy for the greenhorns who are plundered by these bandits of the Turf. There are plenty of bookmakers who carry on their business in a perfectly honest and straightforward manner. But a man is not necessarily one of this class because he sends out a speciously-worded circular from an office in the West End or elsewhere; and if people will be so stupid as to open betting accounts on the strength of such circulars, knowing nothing of the party with whom they are dealing beyond what he has himself told them, it seems to me that they need the lesson they are pretty certain to receive. The following are circularising betting agents who have come under my notice during the past year:—
John Fenwick and Co., 167 Piccadilly.—A defaulter.
G. H. Chardson, 25 Wellington Street, Strand.—A defaulter.
Charles Kittell, 21 Copthall Avenue, E.C.—A defaulter.
Floyd McDermott and Scott, 58 Gillett Row, Thornton Heath.—Defaulters.
S. Russell.—A welsher whose address is frequently changed. Describes himself in his circulars as “member of Tattersall’s Ring.”
George Silke, 3 James Street, Haymarket.—A defaulter. Represents himself as a member of Tattersall’s, which is untrue.