There are writers on turf matters who maintain that there is not now so much betting as there used to be, but that contention can only apply to particular races; for, as a matter of fact, there is in reality five times the amount of turf speculation to-day that there was forty or fifty years since. Take Scotland as an example; half a century ago there was no person earning a living by "bookmaking" alone. True, the "lists" have been "put down," but clubs have arisen, where betting, as has been stated, is going on every day and all day long. Races to which the lists applied were, comparatively speaking, seldom on the tapis, although betting on them, it is right to say, began long before the day fixed for the event to be decided, so that bettors were afforded ample opportunities to "back their fancy." Even at present there are books open on the Cesarewitch and the Cambridgeshire months before the horses are entered for them. The English betting men lately carrying on business in the French towns of Boulogne and Calais betted on these handicaps, as may be said, all the year round. These bookmakers betted with all comers chiefly for ready money, and have been known to lay from five to fifteen thousand pounds against each of two or three of the horses engaged in a popular race. With the daily betting now prevalent, and the occasional spurts which take place over important races held at Manchester, Derby, Leicester, Sandown and Kempton Parks, it may be taken for granted that the amounts involved, so far as totals are concerned, are greatly in excess of what they have ever previously been estimated as being. Those who maintain that "the betting of to-day is nothing to that of forty years ago," usually cite in proof of their assertion the large sums which were wont to change hands over the Derby, such as the £50,000 won over St. Giles, or the £150,000 that Teddington's victory cost the ring, one of the members of which paid one of his customers a sum of £15,000 the morning after the race. Many reminiscences of big sums lost and won over the Blue Ribbon of the Turf have appeared in print, and also of the amounts won at the lists. These were large, no doubt, but the money as a rule went into few hands. When the big bettors, who had the _entrée_ of Tattersall's, were paid their twos and threes or ten thousand pounds the money was exhausted; but not fewer than twelve or fifteen thousand individuals would probably draw from five to fifty pounds each over Bluegown's victory in London, whilst quite as many persons scattered over the United Kingdom would pocket lesser sums.