Nomenclature.—Isn't it the place par excellence where umbrellas and waterproofs are in request? If not, why call it, Hayling Island?
"IN THE KNOW."
(By Mr. Punch's Prophet.)
The collapse of Gasbag can have surprised no careful reader of these columns. His public performances have been uniformly wretched, save and except on the one occasion when he defeated Ranunculus in the Decennial Pedigree Stakes at Newmarket last year, and any fool could have seen that Ranunculus had an off hind fetlock as big as an elephant's. That comes of training a good horse on Seidlitz powders and bran-mash. The muddy-minded moon-calves who chatter in their usual addle-pated fashion about the chances of Jimjams, ought to deceive nobody now that their insane folly has been exposed by me for about the thousandth time; but the general public is such a blathering dunderheaded ass that it prefers to trust itself to the guidance of men like Mr. Jeremy, who knows as much about a horse as he does about the Thirty-nine Articles. If Jimjams, with 9 lbs. advantage and a thousand sovereigns of added money, could only run a bad second to Blue Ruin, who, on the following day, romped in from The Ratcatcher in a common canter,—The Ratcatcher having simply spread-eagled The Parson over the old D. T. course, when the ground was as heavy as Rotten Row in April,—how in the name of common sense can Jimjams be expected to show up against high-class yearlings like Ballarat and Tifftoff on the Goodwin Sands, T. Y. C.? The whole thing is only another instance of the hare-brained imbecility and downright puddling folly with which the cackling herd will follow any brazen-headed nincompoop who sets up to advise them on turf matters. Jimjams has just as much chance of winning this race as Mr. Jeremy has of being Archbishop of Canterbury. Verb. sap. At any rate my readers will not be able to reproach me with not warning them in time.
The latest rumour is that Mrs. Grundy has gone lame after her trial with The Vicar. As I always predicted her break-down, I cannot say I am surprised, though I must own I should like to know what the pestilential pantaloons think of themselves who have been for months advising us to invest our money upon her. All Boozing Billy's stock have come to grief, sooner or later. I thought Lord Softed was a fool to give £5,000 for such a mangy-coated weed as Mrs. Grundy. Now I know it.
Those who want a good thing ought to keep their eyes on Toothpick. When he met Pepperpot, at a stone less than weight for age, with a baby on his back, at Esher last year, the betting being then 20 to 7 against the Harkaway filly, he showed what his true form was. Pepperpot, of course, is a rank impostor, but a careful man might do worse than put a spare threepenny-bit on Toothpick, who always runs better in a snow-storm. As for Dutchman, everybody knows he's not a flyer, and only a man whose brains are made of fish-sauce could recommend him.
