A "RAMP'S" LUCK.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 4455, 7 November 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

A "RAMP'S" LUCK.

A correspondent of the London Telegraph, describing a rido ho had from a raco meeting with a carriage full of the Welshing fraternity, says:—One of the occupants of our carriage lightened tho tediousness of tho journey by narrating tho particulars of a miraculous influx of wealth that in " Hermit's year" rewarded tho endeavors of an adventure of tho "ramp" school. He was so poor that when, on the occasion in question ho arrived breakfastless at Epsom ho was glad to beg a pipe of tobacco of an almost equally hard-up acquaintance he met there. Only on tho ground that he felt absolutely certain as regards tho oiid justifying the means, could his partial friend excuse tho device to which ho resorted to obtain tho wherewithal to pay his railway fare. Ho had no particular fancy for any horso figuring in tho day's programme of sport—merely, as he afterwards declared, a powerful presentiment that now the exact nick of timo had como when his luck was at high flood, and that if ho did not tako advantage of it he would havo reason to be everlastingly sorry for his neglect. Therefore ho stole his wife's crutches, and sold them for throe shillings. Having met with an injury to her back during an altercation with her husband, a feature of which was his throwing her down a flight of stairs, tho poor creature was conveyed to the hospital, where she remained diiring soveral weeks, and boing still a cripple when sho was discharged, a benevolent lady had bought tho crutches for her. After lying awako revolving in his mind how ho could raiso a shilling or two, the "ramp" with tho powerful presentiment found a way suddenly revealed to him. There were his lame wife's aids to locomotion standing hy tho bedsido, and softly rising without waking her ho walked off with them nnd disposed of thorn for tho sum above mentioned at a shop where second-hand goods of a miscellaneous description wero dealt in. This, however, sufficed only to carry him to Epsom. Ho had yet to obtain tho means whorowith to havo a fling for fortune. Ho was too poor and shabby to be accepted as one of a "joint," so there was nothing for him but to "work" single-handed. His usual lino of business was "brief-snatching"— i.e., hovering about the crowd that surrounds a small bookmaker and snatching from the hands of tho unwary the credential they with rash eagerness exhibit, and which thoy desiro to exchange with tho man thoy have bet with for their winnings. Being a practised hand, ho succeeded in his first attempt, and to his great delight found himself in possession of a voucher for ten pounds, which ho shortly after wards drew. Ho went at once and put it all on Hermit, getting forty-fivo to ono for Ms money, and in less than an hour found himself entitled to four hundred and fifty pounds. Confident that his luck was not yet oxhausted, ho made further bets on other races, and by tho time tho last event on tho card was decided won a further sum of a hundred and fifty pounds, making six hundred in all. Taking with him a cool hundred on account, ho hired a fly and went into tho town, where he rigged himself out like a gentleman, including a dust coat and a whito hat and Boon found a ruined gamester who wished to dispose of his fast maro and fashionablo dogcart for fifty pounds, and ho, tho affluent " brief snatcher," bought it thero and then. And, just as it happened while ho was " wetting the deal " with a bottle of " fizz," who should ho sco at tho bar, utterly cleaned out and cursing his ill-fortuno, but tho very man from whom ho had stolon tho "brief" that set lum up; and, moved by generous impulse, he gavo him a sovereign, aftor which he drovo back to London and Somers Town liko tho swell ho was, and much astonished tho man at tho secondhand shop by calling on him to redeem, at a spanking rate of interest, tho crutches ho had sold in the morning.