If these outrages were not stopped, horse-racing and
race-horse breeding must come to a stand-still; and we leave our
readers to realize what _that_ would mean! There would be no horses
for the plough or the gig, or the artillery gun-carriage;
no--er--fox-hunting, and without fox-hunting and steeple-chasing and
point-to-point races you could have no cavalry and without cavalry
you could have no army. If we neglected blood stock we would deal
the farmer a deadly blow, we should--er--
You know the sort of argument? Reduced to its essentials it is
simply this:--That a few rich people are fond of gambling and fond
of the excitement that is concentrated in the few minutes of the
horse race. Some others, not so rich, believe that by combining
horse-racing with a certain amount of cunning and bold cheating
they can make a great deal of money. A few speculators have invested
funds in spaces of open turf, and turn these spaces into race
courses. Having no alternative, no safer method of gambling offered
them, and being as fond of gambling as other peoples of the world,
the men of the labouring classes and a few of their women, the
publicans and their frequenters, army officers, farmers, and women
of uncertain virtue stake their money on horses they have never
seen, who may not even exist, and thus keep the industry going. And
the chevaliers of this "industry," the go-betweens, the parasites of
this sport, are the twelve thousand professional book-makers and
racing touts.
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