Bohemian Days in Fleet Street

by William Mackay

And “no wall” it was.

Charlie Head was a bookie of a different type. He was dapper, well dressed—in fact, a bit of a dandy. The waxed ends of his moustache were a source of general joy to his friends at a time when this mode of treating what Mr. Frank Richardson would call “face fungi” was comparatively neglected. I first met Head, not on the course, but at the theatre. He was a devoted supporter of the drama, and it was only reasonable that he should look to the drama to support him. This it very generously did, when the Philharmonic in Islington was turned into a theatre for the production of “Genevieve de Brabant,” one of the most popular examples of opera bouffe ever given in England. All the town flocked lightly to the terra incognita to see Emily Soldene in her bewitching cook’s uniform, just as all the town some years before had flocked to see Marie Wilton and her clever company in the equally unknown little playhouse in Tottenham Street. In his management of the Philharmonic Theatre, at this very profitable period of its history, Head was associated with Charles Morton—a gentleman whose name was never connected with failure.

Tom King, the well-known champion of the prize ring, was also making a book in the seventies. King was a splendid chap, tall, and well set up as a guardsman. His nose was slightly out of drawing—the result, no doubt, of a professional misadventure. When he left the prize ring Tom cultivated a beard and moustache, which were always carefully trimmed. Anything more unlike a “bruiser” it would be impossible to imagine. His “book” was not his only source of income: he enjoyed large profits as a barge owner. King was a remarkable raconteur, and had a practically inexhaustible collection of yarns, none of them quite suitable for spinning in pages intended for general circulation.

Waterhouse was one of the best of his class. He was a short, fat man, with a funny little mouche on his lower lip. With the exception of this spot, his chubby face was clean-shaven. He was a hot-tempered chap, but as straight as a gun-barrel. He had made a hobby of pigeons, of which he was a well-known and eminently successful exhibitor. Waterhouse was commissioner for Lord Bradford’s stable, and won, I believe, a lot of money when Sir Hugo, at 40 to I, beat La Flêche in the Derby of 1892—a date, I should recollect, which lands me two years beyond the chronological limits of these memoirs.

But, to my way of thinking, Charles Brewer was far and away the best of the old bookmakers. He had his offices in Charles Street, St. James’s. He was joint owner with Charles Blanton, the trainer of that famous racehorse, Robert the Devil. Thousands of the British public, as well as the owners, were bitterly disappointed when Robert the Devil failed to pull off the Derby in 1880. The race was won, it will be remembered, by the Duke of Westminster’s Bend Or. I saw that exciting finish. It was lost to Robert the Devil owing to the cock-sureness of Rossiter, the jockey. He took matters far too easy, and was imprudent enough to look over his shoulder at the psychological moment. Archer, that king of riders, saw his advantage in a flash, and caught his opponent at the post.

And a curious consideration, not altogether unconnected with psychological ramifications, appeals to me here. When I have been deputed to go to a race-meeting for the purpose of making a column or so of descriptive “copy,” the Ring has always presented itself to me as a modern Inferno packed with raucous, foul-mouthed demons—rapacious, brutal, sordid. Again and again have I reeled off impressionist descriptions of what I conceived to be a very brutal exhibition. Yet, in looking back to those old times, the picture of the betting ring does not come back to me as a complete and vivid impression. Faces gaze out at me one by one, and they are all the faces of men who have made their last settlement. One becomes more charitable with the passing of the years, I suppose, and Time teaches us to differentiate. I fail altogether now to recall the Ring as a raging, seething pit. I only recall, with feelings not estranged, some of its members whom I have known, and with whom I have done a little business from time to time. Their manners may not have been those of a Chesterfield, but their principles of commercial morality were more commendable than those of the nobleman whose “Letters,” according to honest Samuel Johnson, inculcated the morals of a monkey and the manners of—well, of something even less respectable than our simian ancestor.

But, having said so much in favour of the personal qualities of certain members of the betting ring, and having admitted that the transactions of the fraternity are as a rule honest and open, I venture to suggest that the institution itself is capable of considerable improvement—that, indeed, the time has come when it might, with benefit to the community and to the Government, be improved off the face of the earth. We are a nation of hypocrites, and are governed by a series of Ministries who play up to our hypocrisy. To certain phases of certain subjects our Government elects to remain blind. By a minority of our countrymen betting is set down as a sin. This minority (many of whom make bets on the sly) has an influence with those in power. Therefore the Government of the day assumes that there is no such thing as wagering for money over horse-racing. The bookmaker is a myth. In the words of Mrs. Gamp, a Minister will tell you, “I don’t believe there’s no sich a person.” And yet what an income is waiting for that Chancellor of the Exchequer who will possess the courage to disestablish the betting ring by instituting the system of Paris Mutuels! The “sin” of betting would not be increased thereby, so that the moral minority should not be perturbed. Absolute protection would be afforded to backers, so that the public would be safeguarded and gratified. And the income derivable from commission to the Government would go far towards providing a new Dreadnought every year, so that, in any event, the nation must be a gainer.

Mr. Lloyd George might talk the matter over with ‘Dr.’ Clifford, Mr. Silvester Horne, and the President of the Methodist Conference. The predominant partner—Mr. John Redmond, to wit—would, I am confident, give his consent to an experiment the object of which would be to give some movement to treasuries which have long since ceased to be “flowing.”

I once spent some hours in the house of a bookmaker, and had an opportunity of studying the penciller’s ménage. I had often had a bet with Andy Anderson. His prices were a trifle short, but he was an agreeable man to do business with—jovial, good-tempered, and amusing. After a day’s racing at Hurst Park, he overtook “Boris” of the Referee and myself, and suggested a “lift” as far as Surbiton—without consulting us as to whether or not Surbiton was on our way home. “Boris”—who in private life was Mr. Harry Bromhead—accepted the invitation. We were given the back seats on Andy’s jobbed landau and pair, the bookie and his clerk facing us, and his “runner” sitting on the box. The carriage eventually drew up at a detached house standing back from an umbrageous front-garden in one of the most highly respectable avenues in Surbiton. The spick-and-span appearance of the façade of the “desirable family residence” suggested the home of a prosperous stockbroker—a class of sportsman then affecting the neighbourhood. Anderson got out, followed by his guests. The landau bowled off with the clerk and the “runner” aboard, and Andy effusively invited us to enter.

We were shown into the drawing-room, where we found Mrs. Anderson—a remarkably fine woman, with much of her husband’s easy good temper—petting a remarkably uninteresting mongrel. Then occurred one of those incidents which illustrated a strange boyish side of Andy’s character. Having formally introduced us to his wife, he gazed at the dog on her lap with an expression of amazement and admiration, and asked, with great seriousness: