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f it, before the change in the betting shows the public what has happened.
Now here, unfortunately, we touch on a part of our subject which affects men who are not, in a proper sense of the word, 'bookmakers.' It is a singular circum-
stance--or rather it is not at all singular, but accords with multiplied experiences, showing how the moral nature gets warped by gambling transactions--that men who are regarded by the world, and regard themselves, as gentlemen, seem to recognize nothing dishonorable in laying wagers which they know not to accord with the real chances of a horse. A man who would scorn to note the accidental marks on the backs of playing cards, and still more to make such marks, will yet avail himself of knowledge just as unfair in horse-racing as a knowledge of the backs of certain cards would be in whist or ecarte.
I have elsewhere cited as an illustration the use which Hawley Smart, in one of his novels (' Bound to Win'), makes of this characteristic of sporting men. It has been objected, somewhat inconsistently, that in the first place the novelist's picture is inaccurate, and in the second the use which the hero of that story makes of knowledge about his own horses was perfectly legitimate. As to the first point, I may remark that I do not need to read Hawley Smart's novels, or any novels, to be well assured that the picture is perfectly accurate, and that sporting men do make use of special knowledge about a horse's chances to make profitable wagers. As to the second point, I note that it well illustrates my own position, that gambling has the effect of darkening men's sense of right and wrong: it shows that many sporting men regard as legitimate what is manifestly unfair.
Not to go over ground already trodden, I turn to
another of Hawley Smart's lively tales, the hero of which is a much more attractive man than Harold Luxmore in' Bound to Win '--Grenville Rose in ' A Race for a Wife.' He is not, for a wonder, a sporting hero; in everything but the racing arrangements, which he allows to be made in his name, he behaves much as a gentleman should, and manifestly he is intended to represent an English gentleman. He comes across information which shows that, by the action of an old form of tenure called ' right of heriot,' a certain horse which is the leading favorite for the Two Thousand can be claimed and so prevented from running. Of the direct use of this information, to free the heroine from a rascally sporting lawyer, nothing need be said but ' serve the fellow right.' Another use is, however, made of the knowledge thus obtained, and it is from this use that the novel derives its name. To a racing friend of his, a lawyer (like himself and the villain of the story), the hero communicates the secret. To him the racing friend addresses this impressive response :-
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