CHAPTER XII. SWINDLES AND HOAXES.

racing in any capacity; and any effort made to contradict wholesale and thoughtless accusations is supposed to be the outcome of self-interest, or the blind devotion of quixotry. Men who are cool and calculating enough when discussing ordinary subjects, become almost rabid when the turf is mentioned; and in most articles which have been written on the subject of sporting advertisements, it is assumed that the scheming concocters of baits for fools are fair representatives of the bookmaking class, and all are alike denounced. Surely it would be as just to assume that the baby-farmers and promoters of home employment whose effusions we have quoted were fair representatives of ordinary commerce, as that the “discretionary-investment” promoter is in any way connected with the legitimate bookmaker. We have no wish here to argue for or against betting; but we cannot help noticing that even in Parliament—which is never supposed to legislate upon what it does not understand!—notorious thieves have been taken to represent the principal advertising bookmakers, and long arguments as to the equity of the Betting-House Act framed on the assumption. During the present year there has been considerable discussion in the House of Commons with reference to the Act which was passed in 1853, Scotland being at the time exempt from its operation. The effect of leaving the “land of cakes” in the position of one who is known to be too virtuous to need protection was not visible for some years; for though the Act of Sir Alexander Cockburn had the effect of clearing away the numerous betting-offices, which were undoubtedly at the time public nuisances and open lures to men whose speculative disposition was in inverse proportion to its means of gratification, the better-class agents, whose business was carried on through the post only, continued to flourish or decay, according to circumstances, until 1869. The attention of the police being then