BACKIN' 'ORSES.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXV, Issue 11786, 24 September 1913, Page 6

BACKIN' 'ORSES.

(By "Tyro.")

Tyro is sick and sorry, depresso'l, we&ry, and broken-spiritod. (By the way, that's, not the only direction in which he's br&ke, either.) He's obsessed by racehorses, totalisators, £30 dividends—and also 12s Cd dividends. It's a great life this sporting life. No doubt about it. If you have never tried it, make up your mind to do so — and then change-your mind mighty quick. Take my tip, and leave the game alone. Now, if such things as bookmakers existed they'd be down on me like a pack of hungry wolves foxsaying that, but the law has abolished the book-maker; made him illegal, squashed him, and so, under tho circumstances ho doesn't exist. Or if ho does; well, he ought to be ashamed of himself, because tho law says ho musn't, and the law knows what's best. Beg ; pardon, I iiorgot; tho law's a hass. j But "the way of tho punter is hard." No matter what ho tries or what he does ho is generally a ba-d second. As I said before, poor old Tyro's been trying , the game, and he's sore, What with straight tips, first-rate information, good things, and 12s od, 13s and 17s dividends, well, ho don't know where ho are. A friend of mine who was present at a meeting lately, returnod sad and forlorn, and related his oxporiences to mo. "Look here," he said, "what do these chaps know that get thoso good things? Do they know anything? Course they don't. If they did what 'd they go telling everybody for? Who gives them their inform , tion? Why, nobody. They'ro just guesscrs. ( _If they could find out all these good tips, and they were as good as they say, they would be bloomin' millionaires by this time. Why, some guy told me a thing called Soup Beam, was going to win tho other day and it got beat, like the rest of them, ami my quid was made a. mighty site smaller when I got it back. "But I'AS-as going to tell you about that meeting I went to this week. Well, I sorted them all out before I went to the course. I wasn't there the first day, but I'd seen the accounts in the papers, and i. knew how they'd run— some of them; how some had tried to run ami made a hash of it, and all about it. Now, I said, no one's going to put mo off these things. I had a noddy called Ron-ko-mow sorted out in tho first race. He looked good, I thought. Then that infernal know-all cuss came along and told me Soup-Beam was going to win. I backed him, and Ron-ko-mow won. Just my luck. I was looking for the next man who tried to tell me anything.

"I had'Who-ya marked off for the second race, but when I was watching the horses go out, the band struck up Yankee Doodle. The straight tip, says I, Yankee Doodle, and I backed it. Who-ya won.- And so it went on all day. * The things T should have backed Avon, the ones I -did back didn't.

"Just before the last race I found I had nineteen bob left. I decided, to invest that in the best Gold Top, and I made my way into the booth. I ran against '■some mates who had struck winners and were doing their best to hand them over to the,, man behind the bar. I joined them, and I woke up in the morning, in a strange hotel, with a threepenny bit, a copper, a pocket full of tote tickets, and a sore head."

Oh, it's a great life this sporting life! "The sport of kings." Well, well. Poor kings! They have my deepest sympathy. But maybe from their point of view it's different. You see, I'm not a king.