Calendar_ of July 23, 1874, and the official notice at Goodwood by the Duke of Richmond, “No ready-money betting will be allowed upon any part of the course or park,” in the _Calendar_ of the same date. AN ACCOUNT OF THE PRESENT INCREASE BETTING It is not necessary to follow in any detail, beyond this period, the growth of horse-racing, and the practice of betting connected with it which had now become a national foible. The foregoing sketch was desirable for the understanding of the subject, owing to the absence of any other authentic continuous record, and by the fact that the masses of the nation had not become a gambling people as compared with foreign populations, either in other ways or in this, until long after the introduction of the sport. The above review of the past takes us up to the year mentioned (1874), when the failure of a prosecution, owing to the interest or prejudice of the Newmarket magistrates, for permitting ready-money betting in the rings, finally opened the flood-gates of the system, which now, aided by railway, telegraph, and press, spread over the country in an ever-increasing volume, and from tens of thousands of sources in city, town, and village drew its main increment from the money-making and wage-earning classes. Hardly any portion of the country, any section of the population, was free from the blight. The bookmakers multiplied. The wealthy and the idle squandered fortunes on them; the toilers brought their sovereigns and half-crowns in myriads. A large portion of the press battened upon the advertisements of prosperous betting men. Servants of the state in high legal positions, devotees of the race-course, and others of subordinate station, gave decisions as to the construction of the law so framed as to put no check upon the spread of professional betting; and horse-racing became a trade instead of a sport. The enormous money interests honeycombed it with dishonesty. Sometimes owners, and more often trainers, jockeys, touts, and betting men, arranged which horse should win, according to the exigencies of the betting market; and, not unfrequently, poison played its part when it was necessary, from the trade point of view, to prevent an animal from first passing the winning-post. The very atmosphere of the turf was pestiferous; it corrupted everything of it and connected with it. The pretence that it was any longer a noble sport was only countenanced by the fashion of titled people patronising it. The ancient plea as to its improving the breed of horses became a byword as the number of yearling races increased and the length of the courses was reduced. The pregnant sentence in the Report of the old Committee (1844) of the House of Lords was forgotten: “The Committee would consider the advantages of horse-racing more than problematical if they were to be unavoidably purchased by excessive gambling and the vice and misery which it entails.” The streams of small bets swelled into rivers, and the rivers