THE PROFESSION OF A BOOKMAKER.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIII, Issue 752, 4 August 1904, Page 11

THE PROFESSION OF A BOOKMAKER.

Our bookmakers will no doubt read the following, from the pen of “ Vigilant,” which recently appeared in the London “ Sportsman,” with a great amount of interest. He says : —“ I was looking the other morning at the lifelike and lifesize portraits of Messrs R. Topping, ‘ Joe ’ Thompson, and 'Alec’ Harris, which may be seen 'in Clarence Hailey’s window at Newmarket, and I became conscious of a wish that all such anti-gamblers as are open to reason might also see them, for, if there be any truth in physiognomy, the countenances of the three gentlemen referred to would convince any but the most obstinate that there is nothing iniquitous, or even predatory, about the profession of a bookmaker. It will, I think, be generally admitted that professions or callings with any marked tendency do as a general rule impress on those who practise them some special characteristics. It is not difficult to distinguish a barrister from a doctor, or either of them from a solicitor or schoolmaster. Similarly, if you walk through the city you will not fail to notice the cast of features which results from the eager pursuit of riches. Men grow hawklike in expression, hungry and crafty, even cruel-looking ; and, though I do not for an instant mean that all city men are of this type, I do say you will meet thorn sands such any day in the city, hurrying

feverishly about in the course of their business. They are not pleasant to look on, and if bookmakers were like them I should not have takem up my parable on on this subject. It is quite certain, however, that bookmakers do not in their faces disclose any suggestion of rapacity or inclination to evil. The worst that could be said of Mr Thompson is that he would not look out of place as a colonial legislator. Mr Topping is so amiable and genial of aspect that he would make a sure success as an old-style Boniface, and as for Mr Harris, if we saw him at Smithfield, the only exception we should take is that his face is too kindly to permit of his being concerned in a trade which involves the killing of animals. I defy anyone to detect the slightest semblance of guile, cunning, or astuteness in the countenance of any of these gentlemen, and they are fair samples of their profession. Is it not clear, then, that bookmaking is both honourable and honest when we find its tried professors men in whom not the most expert physiognomist could see any indication of wrongdoing ? I commend this argument in all sincerity to Lord Davey and the Bishop of Hereford, for it is really a sound one, and the only point for them to be assured on is that I am right in my premise, that those three faces at Clarence Hailey’s are unstamped with any token of evil. "The subject is an interesting one, and I will carry it a little further, for there are the trainers, men who in transpontine dramas are invariably ‘ squared,’ and do all manner of evil. Even in racing novels, not more than one honest trainer is ever permitted to exist ; but let us look for a moment at the actual men as they are at present. It is not too much to say that W. Waugh, Alec. Taylor, Percy Peck, A. Sadler, and Sam Pickering would make ideal parsons, so far as looks go. S. Darling, as a family doctor, would be a sure success. Richard Marsh is of the country squire type. Felix Leach has the appearance of a prosperous yeoman farmer. Blackwell would do well on the stage, as also would George Chaloner. James Waugh would fill the place of a Scotch elder most worthily. Charles Archer would make a hit as a county councillor, and R. Sherwood as a schoolmaster. John Porter is like nobody but himself, and that I am sure js the highest commendation that can be bestowed on him. I might instance very many more trainers, but the above will suffice to emphasise mv argument that their calling cannot be a vicious one, as their faces show no signs of vice. Who, in heaven’s name, could trace any vice in the countenance of Martin Gurry or of Jacob Pineus ? The same rule holds good with the jockeys. Take two typical cases —Maher and Lane. Would they not both look well as surpliced choristers ? In racing novels and transpontine dramas jockeys are always scoundrels of the deepest dye, except, of course, the one who is necessary for the ultimate victory of the favourite, and he is usually a ‘ chalk ’

jockey, sometimes even a girl, so impossible is it in the imagination of the authors to find an honest jockey among the regular lot. Yet Maher and Lane might, so far as their looks afford any indication, have been practising an angelic calling ; while M. Cannon, K. Cannon, Hardy, and others too numerous to mention, have countenances too transparent for any evil to lurk behind unseen. No, we are bound to admit, if we look fairly at it in this way, that the case for the jockeys also is made out. As to the owners, I don’t think it has ever been suggested that they, as a class, suffer from knavish propensities. In the racing novels and dramas they are usually represented as being the dupes of bookmakers, jockeys, and trainers, saving, oi course, the leading villain, who endeavours to compass the ruin of his hated rival, and with that view sets all the lower class villains in motion. Y’ears ago there were perhaps trainers and jockeys and bookmakers from whom the novelists and dramatists have derived their types, and we have, of course, in our own times known trainers to whom the epithet ‘ astute ’ anight be properly applied —the late Harry Hall, for example—but if we could once more people the paddock at Newmarket with with those that have gone we should still see no sign that racing or betting has conduced to evil. See, for example, the genial, kindly face of Mathew Dawson, with that twinkling smile which even Phil May failed to catch. There, too, the more rubicund features of his brother Joseph, and the more sedate countenance of brother John. The sturdy form of Charles Blanton now passes, and his face is honest as the day. Tom Frown, well dressed and groomed, what harm can he have ever done ? The bright pleasant face of James Jewitt has left to none of us an unkindly thought ; and rugged'old Tom Jennings’ would be very welcome to all could he but revisit the glimpses of the moon. All this I write not at all on the principle of 'de mortuis nil nisi bonum,’ but because it is very true that men intimately connected with horses and racing and betting are almost invariably very good fellows indeed. They do their best to make the world go well with others as well as themselves while they live, and when they die they are much more sincerely regretted than are people whose lives have been spent in endeavours to suppress the pleasures and amusements of their fellows. It is to be presumed that the Bishop of Hereford has some appreciation of Christian charity as well as of politics, and if he would onV brush away the clouds of prejudice from his mental vision and look at the facts as they are and not as he imagines them to be, he would find that amid all the connections of the turf, high and low, rich and poor, there is more true charity and sympathy one with another than among any class of his fellow-country-men, the Church not excepted. It is because I feel this strongly that I have elaborated the argument somewhere more fullv than I at first intended.”