are as conversant with pedigrees and performances of horses as can be, yet who know nothing beyond what they see on paper, and who, authorities on racing when in Fleet Street, would be quite nonplussed if taken to Newmarket among the horses whose names they know so well.
We trust we have now made plain the two greatest swindles in connection with the turf, and at the same time shown the unworthiness of even the pretence to knowledge made by them. But we have no wish that readers, forgetting the scamps with whom we set out, shall conclude this chapter with the impression that there are no thieves so bad as sporting thieves, and so we will fall back on some swindling advertisements of the general kind, from the general papers, which are not only as roguish, but as ignorant of the subjects selected as the effusions of Rawlings himself. Here is one from the Weekly Times of a couple of years or so back:—
WONDERS OF THE HOROSCOPE.—Any person sending an addressed envelope, age, height, colour of hair and eyes, together with 13 stamps, will receive within 24 hours a correct likeness of their future husband or wife, and date of marriage.—Address, A. Wemyss, 2, Drake-street, Red Lion-square, London.
We don’t mind giving Mr Wemyss—what an aristocratic name, by the way!—a gratuitous advertisement, though we hope that the first customer he gets through our instrumentality will be the reverse of profitable. Wemyss can do better still at a better price, as other advertisements show. He is a milder form of rascal than Methralton, who makes offer as follows in several of the weekly papers, and who is not content with his effect on the mind, but actually wishes to interfere with the matter:—
WONDROUS ARTS.—Your future revealed—Seven years, six stamps; lifetime twelve stamps. State age. Love Charm, sixteen stamps. Medicine for removing