Perhaps, however, this important question may remain buried in the lap of the future, unless public attention is called to it ever and again with increasing vehemence, and we are able to see more clearly the bane of our insular position, and the false pride which blinds and prejudices us.
I have had the opportunity of discussing this question with many racing men, and with scarcely an exception they have brought no arguments forward antagonistic to it, the majority indeed being its advocates; yet there comes the reiterated cry from those who call themselves practical men: “My dear fellow; how are you going to act about it! What chance is there of obtaining sanction from the legislature?”
Supposing I were to suggest the similitude of the bye-gone Welsh remedy, which in its result swept away the multiplication of turnpikes in South Wales some seventy years ago, which materially hindered the traffic between Wales and England. These Welshmen donned the nightdresses of women, calling themselves daughters of Rebecca, who was “not afraid to meet her enemies in the Gate,” and on swift cobs they swooped down at night on all the gates, smashing and burning them. Neither the police nor military could catch one of them, and very soon it began to dawn on the Government that a good reason underlaid this lawlessness. A Royal Commission was appointed, which was the means of an Act of Parliament being passed which swept away the objectionable gates and placed the roads under Government supervision, and they then became the best in the Kingdom.
And now to apply the simile. The legislature has decided by the Kempton Park case that a racecourse is not such a public place as stated in the last Betting Act, where betting can be prohibited. Why, therefore, should not the Totalizer be erected there, and betting by such means be allowed just as much and as legally as it is now carried on by bookmakers. This cannot, to my thinking, be considered as a lottery, pure and simple, because it does not depend upon your merely drawing out the lucky number. You have all the prowess of the horses and the skill of their riders weighing in the balance, and you stand in exactly the same position as the man that speculates in stocks, or insures his risks. Why not, therefore, erect the Totaliser on some enclosures on our racecourses? and even should they prove targets for the attack of the police, or possibly the bookmakers, at starting, I believe that ultimately, sooner indeed than later, their case will prevail, and then the greatest and most wholesome reform in racing will take effect. It will then be time for my critics to exclaim, “What next?”
As regards hunting, I have only to appeal to your correspondent J. J. D. J.’s article in your magazine of last month, “Is Hunting Doomed?” to show that we cannot hope to see it carried on in many countries in the same haphazard way as of old. Despite the fact that its devotees are as keen and as good as ever, its facilities are narrowed year by year, and its difficulties multiplied. Oh, that it were not so, for as your readers, especially your elder readers, must know, in “Borderer’s” heart as a true sport, where gain or loss has no part, hunting stands alone as the best, most ennobling, and manliest sport that we can enjoy. Cosmopolitan also it has hitherto been. How long it will remain so we dread to contemplate. That also lies in the lap of the future.
When the what next of shooting is considered, I confess to being completely carried off my legs. Gunners have of late increased so rapidly in numbers and methods, that we know not where we may not be within the next few years, looking at the fact that circumstances are annually lending themselves to the extension of game preserving, and that the nouveaux riches can so easily indulge in this taste, which requires little learning, and short practice. Its aids to introduction into Society; its excuses for hospitality; its Royal patronage—all bring it immeasurably to the front; and when we read, as we did last month, of over 8,000 pheasants being slaughtered in three days at Vater Priory, we wonder what are the probabilities, or possibilities, or the future of shooting. Truly they can only be measured by the depth of the purse. All else can be thrown in.
I see that the Sporting League have issued a manifesto, warning sportsmen of dreadful things which the change in the Government is likely to bring about. Lord Daney’s Betting Bill is to be revived in its worst phases, and the sporting correspondent of Truth vouchsafes the opinion that he will see the sun and the moon drop from the sky before ready money betting will be legalised! This latter declaration fills me with hope, knowing, as we do, how often these truthful prophecies turn out to be fallacious!
Nor do I set much value on the fears of the Sporting League, because, if the vox populi is tested, as we are given to understand that it will be under Radical dominion, the betting question is much more likely to take a wider range, and peer and peasant alike will have equal rights of investing their money under perfect security on racecourses without let or hindrance. This can only be accomplished by means of the Totaliser, and working men will soon come to know that the usages of our Colonies and other neighbouring countries to their own have come to appreciate the benefits that it confers on them, and thus they will demand a vote in its favour at home.
It will take me a long time to believe that the faddists and the working men are destined to lie down together in perfect peace. Their ideas and methods are so utterly opposed. Indeed, my faith in the coming about of this great reform rests in “the tail wagging the head,” and that if the Jockey Club are to be stirred up, and the middle classes moved to action, it will be done by the progressive shoulder-to-shoulder pressure of the people, when once they appreciate the position, and realise the advantages to be gained, of which no small share will fall to their lot.
Thus perhaps the answer to “What Next?” will ring out.