BEADY-MONEY BETTING.

Otago Witness, Issue 1731, 24 January 1885, Page 21

BEADY-MONEY BETTING.

(The Field.)

There can be no sort of doubt that wagering upon- parole— that in to say, with an understanding that beta made on the racecourse and inscribed in books, shall not be settled until the following Monday — is a comparatively recent innovation upon the practice of our predecessors. Many are still living who can remember the confidence and eagerness with which, upon a dozen racecourses, and especially in Yorkshire, stalwart and broad-faced men of the farmer typGi whom our French noighbpuvs would have tailed '* fathers of fcu&ilies*"

were in the habit of rushing up to William Davies, commonly called ".The Leviathan," and of thrusting £5 notes into his hand 'as investments upon the horse of their choice. The scone displayed upon Chester racecourse just bofoLe Nancy, who was then four years old, and carried 9st lib, started for the Cup in 1852, will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. Davies was then at his zenith, and, having won £60,000 upon the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire of 1851, • bad opened the year iri £1852 with £130,000 to his credit at the London and Westminster Bank. He was also an excellent judge of a handicap, and knew that, down to 1852, no four-year-old, carrying anything like the weight imposed that year upon Nancy, had ever won the Chester Cup. Having a strong opinion that Nancy, although she had won the same race in 1851, as a three-year-old, carrying 4st 121b, was little likely to repeat her victory in 1852, Davies took as many £5 notes as were offered to him, and wrote "55 to 0 against Nancy" down in his book, together with the taker's name, many scores of times. Of a truth, the supply of £5 notes — the smallest amount to which Davies would lay the odds upon a racecourse — seemed that day to be illimitable. As a rule, it was "The Leviathan's" practice to settle with strangers who did not live in London immediately after a race in which they won money from him. In this instance however, he repeated, sotto voce, the words, "If Nancy wins, you will receive your money in London," to each of the countless local supporters of the Yorkshire mare. The Chester Cup of 1852 was remarkable for having brought forty-three scatters to tbe post— the largest number of animals that ever carried silk simultaneously upon an English racecourse. It was won by the late Mr Joseph Parker's Joe Miller, ridden by James Goater, then a -Ist 101b boy, but now a jockey who, as he showed last Wednesday at Warwick, is still able to hold his own against the best of his younger rivals

Against ready-money betting of this kind no member of the Jockey Club and no sensible organ of public opinion would ever be likely to remonstrate. It will be an evil day for England when many of her farmers, m'.llerß, yeomen, traders, and professional men cease to take interest in open-air sports, and occasionally to risk a few shillings or a fow pounds upon, the hazard of a race. In the event — not by any means a toot probable one — of their investing upon the winning horse, it is highly desirable, in the best interests of the turf, that their enterprise and judgment should be rewarded by the prompt receipt of the money which is then their due. Admiral Rous used to look on at scenes such as that which took place upon Chester racecourse in 1852 with undisguised satisfaction. He knew that if the baokers won their money they were sure to receive it from Davies, and, if they lost it, that they would return to the charge another day, upon the principle " Better luck next time." Throughout the whole of his long career the gallant Admiral looked with sympathetic eyes upon what he called "backers in the £10 line of business," and he was equally inexorable against defaulters of all kinda. No jnan ever lived who was more in harmony with Benjamin Eranklin's maxim, "The only friend who never fails you is ready money."

We are all aware that staking money before a race, whether it be done in the streets of London, or in the back parlour of a betting office, or upon a racecourse, is illegal in thia country; nevertheless, there is hardly a race meeting in England where such transactions do not constantly take place with or without the connivance of the constituted authorities. It is notorious that oven the metropolis of the turf is not free from transgressions of this kind, and at, every big and little race meeting throughout the kingdom ready-money bookmakers, many of them being " welshers," are known to abound. About a dozen years since tbe late Mr George Payne, one of the oldest members of the Jockey Club, was " welched " upon the Worcester racecourse, while staying as a guest at Croome with Lord Coventry, by whom'he was mercilessly roasted for his guileless simplicity. There can be no question that* the turf has few worse enemies than the ignoble "welsher," who is also not unfrequently a, member of what the police call " the dangerous j classes." Old as the world is, and trite and ! common-place as are the frailties and imbecilities of mankind, the amazing and inextinguishable gullabilitji of human nature will never cease to afford materials for comment and j warning, which no moralist or essayist will ever be able to exhaust. Within the last few days, for instance, we have had the case of a I wealthy Australian brought before us, who, although endowed with a capacity for making money, seemed altogether to have lacked the ' power of keeping it. The unsuspecting victim in question returned from the Antipodes in company with an Englishman, to whom, al- ! though a stranger, he took a great fancy during their long voyage. Upon arriving in England the two new friends went to live together in the Englishman's home, and Bhortly afterwards the latter represented to the Australian I that he might employ his money with great advantage in betting upon horseraces. The haploss dupe trusted his adviser with £200, which sum was lost at the first race meeting they attended. Exclaiming that "it was only j a fleabite," and that they would soon get it back j with compound interest, the wily tempter induced his victim to part with other Bums of money, all of which disappeared mysteriously, without the names of the horses upon which the money was staked being even indicated to the innocent loser. Two accomplices were called in by the Engliaihman to assist him in fleecing the simpleton that chance had thrown in his way ; nor need we add that these auxiliaries were represented to be men thoroughly familiar with all the mysteries of the French and English «Turf, and well acquainted with members of the Jockey Club, with trainers, jockeys, and other "men of light and leading." At last, having parted with considerable sums, tbe Australian hardened his heart, and prosecuted the three- knaves by whom he had been robbed. It transpired duringthe trial that they were rogues of a very ordinary type. One of them waa well known to the police, the second had flash notes in his pockets when airreßted. and the third was that highly equivocal nondescript, "a betting man," with no other occupation

Let us hope that the sentences of imprisonment with hard labour imposed upon the three conspirators will afford them a convenipnt opportunity for reflecting upon tbe error of their ways. For their victim, on' the other hand, what laws that it is possible for human ingenuity to devise would ever Eufnoe to insure protection against fraud and puile? It is just ton years ninca the newspapers of France. Italy, Russia, and Germany were flooded with advertisments announcing that "A General Society of Assurance against Losses upon the Turf had been started in London, with its central offices in' Moorgate street, and i a branch officßß at every great racing centre in Lngland. The Bank of England and the London and County Bank were publicly pro claimed aa ita bankers, and many weeks elapsnd before any disclaimer of acquaintance with "Mr William Oubome " and "MrSydnay Montague " issued from the governor and the Bjana&» <cfi the two rjrsat baultd in ousstica.

At last the vigorous denunciations of a daily contemporary led the police to stop and bxamine " Mr Sydney Montague's " registered lettei's, when it was found 'that in six weeks £5000 had been transmitted to him from tho Continent. A few months later five men named Benson, William and Frederick Kurr, Bale, and Murray were arrested and convicted of forgery, and of having robbed a French lady, named Madame de Goncourt, of more than £10,000. The baits employed by them to trap gulls were of ao transparent a kiud that, as might well have been imagined, no child would have been imposed upon by them. Yet it is incontrovertible that by these flimsy devices a few unblushing knaves contrived, in a very brief time, to draw thousands upon thousands of pounds from dupes, for whom and their successors, confidence trick men, thimbleriggers, and throe-card manipulators will doubtless continue to bait traps successfully until the crack of doom.

" There is a fool born every hour," exclaimed one of these sharpers to an informant of Mr Auderson, one of the members for Glasgow, "and, thank heaven, the majority of ,them live." Under these circumstances, how is it possible to protect so credulous and gullible an animal as man from the pitfalls and snares which surround him on every side? "Laws," once exclaimed Chief Justice Mansfield, "were not made for simpletons ;" and Lo the end of time the old saw, " A fool and Mb money are soon parted," will continue to hold good. As regards the prevention of "welshiag" upon racecourses, one of our Vienna contemporaries has lately expressed its astonishment that England and France do not adopt the" totalisator"—an Australian invention, which is found to work admirably upon Austrian and Hungarian racecourses, no less than in South Australia and N«w Zaaland. It is claimed for the totalisator that it enables baokers to get such odds as are novet laid to them by bookmakers ; that it renders all collusion between betting men and jockeys impossible ; that it abolishes " welbhiug ;" "and, finally, that the deduction of 5 or 7 per cont. from the gross sum which passes through the machine is sufficient to enrich races with enormous endowments.

For the present, public opinion in England is not ripe for the substitution of the totahsator for the bookmaker, and hia counterfeit, the welshor. A time, however, may not inconceivably come, and at no distant date, when willing cars will ba oifored to the advice of our Austrian and Australian contemporaries by members of tho English Jockey Club, to whom at present the totalisator is no more than a name.