Betting & Gambling: A National Evil — Text and Context

, but without exception they bear on their face evidence of their reality. The writer of these lines, however, ascertained the fact of their genuineness from the editor who published them in one of the largest and oldest of our daily newspapers, which has been by no means otherwise conspicuous in this phase of social reform. We may be allowed to quote the following reflections, which witness to the existence of this ruffianly condition of the Turf, from Mr. George Gissing’s _Private Papers of Henry Rycroft_ (1903), pp. 43-44:—

To-day’s newspaper contains a yard or so of reading about a spring horse-race. The sight of it fills me with loathing. It brings to my mind that placard I saw at a station in Surrey a year or two ago, advertising certain races in the neighbourhood. Here is the poster as I copied it into my notebook:—

“Engaged by the Executive to ensure order and comfort to the public attending the meeting: 14 detectives (racing), 15 detectives (Scotland Yard), 7 police inspectors, 9 police sergeants, 76 police, and a supernumerary contingent of specially selected men from the Army Reserve and Corps of Commissionaires. The above force will be employed solely for the purpose of maintaining order and excluding bad characters, etc. They will have the assistance also of a strong force of the Surrey Constabulary.”

I remember once when I let fall a remark on the subject of horse-racing among friends chatting together, I was voted “morose.” Is it really morose to object to public gatherings which their own promoters declare to be dangerous for all decent folk? Every one knows that horse-racing is carried on mainly for the delight and profit of fools, ruffians, and thieves. That intelligent men allow themselves to take part in the affair, and defend their conduct by declaring that their presence “maintains the character of a sport essentially noble,” merely shows that intelligence can easily enough divest itself of sense and decency.

For a good insight from a bookmaker’s point of view of the “sport of kings” the reader is referred to _Sixty Years on the Turf_, by George Hodgman.

Bad as all this is, the continued permission of existence to these scores of peripatetic gambling hells would be an isolated evil were it not inextricably mixed up indirectly with the daily life of the masses of the population, who very seldom or never visit the courses. But these baneful institutions and the gambling clubs are fed by the life-blood of the people, whose hard-earned money flows by the thousand retail conduits of street and factory bookmakers to these gambling marts and clearing houses. It is not only where working men and women gather in numbers, but in the home, amongst domestic servants of both sexes, in the shop, the office, on the journey, in educational establishments, even in the Sunday school and the juvenile social club and class, that betting is discovered. A lady who devotes her life to the young, and lives among them in a poor part of London, says that she has very little difficulty about drink amongst the youths, but hardly dare attack the betting systematically for fear of losing her protégés. She found one lad actually receiving telegrams from France during the Continental racing season.