It is earnestly to be hoped, if horse-racing is to endure, in which event there must be betting, that the bookmaker will be permitted to ply his pencil, as also that he will be licensed by the Jockey Club and be authorised to bet for ready money only. The writer of the article in _The Edinburgh Review_, already referred to, puts the case in favour of ready money in a forcible fashion: "If a man were compelled to deposit his stake every time he made a bet, he would be more cautious in betting. Put me down the odds to a monkey is easy to say, but the monkey (£500) is not so easy to pay if the bet is lost, and were it to pay at the moment the chances are that no monkey would be put down." Betting between private friends is a horror of the worst description. Think of Major Bobadil laying Ensign Simple 100 to 25 against a horse which he _knows_ will never be started for the race it is being backed to win. In such circumstances what would be a proper designation for Major Bobadil, blackguard or blackleg? It will of course be said, if you go to a bookmaker he possesses the same knowledge, and so he may; but then the bookmaker is neither your mess-fellow nor your private friend. Persons who are determined to bet ought never to bet with a friend, but should invariably resort to the professional bookmaker. It is not necessary to say much more about this phase of betting, because the arguments against credit and in favour of ready money are so obvious and so strong as not to require voluminous illustration. It is quite certain that if a man were required to table his five, ten, or twenty sovereigns every time he made a bet, betting would speedily diminish, and far less would then be heard of "turf iniquities" and crimes of the turf. When, for instance, a man has betted for a week at Epsom, Ascot, or Newmarket, and fortune has gone against him, he will stick at nothing in order to be able to settle his account, as he may have interests at stake which demand imperatively that Monday shall see his account in process of liquidation. A man would not perhaps deliberately forge or steal to obtain a sum with which to make a ready money bet, but there are circumstances in which he would do so in order to settle his account when he has been betting on what is called "the nod" (credit).