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s swindling, and though we may not have a particle of sympathy with such men when they lose in this way, the acceptance of such wagers is in no sense justified. Two wrongs do not, in this case more than in any other make a right.
I have said that in every depth there is a deeper still. In the subject I am dealing with there is a deepest depth of all. I will not, however, sully these pages with the consideration of the foulest of the rascality's to which horse-racing has led. Simply to show those who bet on horse-races how many risks of loss they expose themselves to, I mention that some owners of horses have been known to bring about the defeat of their own
horse, on which the foolish betting public had wagered large sums, portions of which find their way into the pockets of the dishonest owners aforementioned. I may add that, according to an old proverb, there are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with cream. A horse may be most effectually prevented from winning without any such vulgar devices as pulling, roping, and so forth. So also a horse, whose owner is honest, may be ' got at' after other fashions than have been noted yet, either in the police courts or in sporting novels.
Let us turn, however, from these unsavory details, and consider briefly the objections which exist against gambling, even in the case of cash transactions so conducted that no unfair advantage is taken on either side.
The object of all gambling transactions is to win without the trouble of earning. I apprehend that nearly every one who wagers money on a horse race has, for some reason or other, faith in his own good fortune. It is a somewhat delicate question to determine how far such faith makes gambling unfair. For if, on the one hand, we must admit that a really lucky man could not fairly gamble against others not so lucky, yet, as it is absolutely certain in the scientific sense that no such thing as luck which may be depended upon exists, it is difficult to say how far faith in a non-existent quality can be held to make that fraudulent which would certainly be fraudulent did the quality exist. Possibly if a man, A, before laying a wager with another, B, were to
say, ' I have won nearly every bet I have made' B might decline to encounter A in any wager. In the case of a man who had been so lucky as A, it is quite probable that, supposing a wager made with B and won by A, B would think he had been wronged if A afterwards told him of former successes. B might say, ' You should have told me that before I wagered with you; it is not fair to offer wagers where you know you have a better chance of winning than your opponents.' And though B would, strictly speaking be altogether wrong, he would be reasoning correctly from his incorrect assumption, and A would be unable to contradict him.
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