And yet how painfully the directness of the path from betting to bondage, from Epsom to the Old Bailey, was brought before me each month for those ten years. Before each session of the Central Criminal Court a procession of young postmen for trial, and destined in those days almost inevitably to penal servitude for their first crime, showed how good character, fair education, constant and honourable employment, and sobriety, had all been inoperative against the temptation to steal letters containing money. And why the theft? In almost every case it was that they had been led into betting on horse-races, had lost, and had been pressed for the money by the bookmakers under threats of exposure. This was an ever-recurring object-lesson on crime as a product of betting, but the most striking instance I recall was when three Chief Inspectors of Scotland Yard—Bishops in their profession—were charged and sentenced in consequence of their having allowed themselves to be drawn under the influence of some Turf criminals of the most dangerous type. Then indeed one thought, If those things are done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry? If these experienced men of the world, with professional knowledge of the tricks of the hangers-on of the Turf, can be drawn into the vortex, what can we expect of the average silly and ill-paid clerk, who has some excuse for his feverish desire to add to his inadequate income, though at the expense of others? And telegraph clerks again became prisoners through their special temptations. The straight tip for which a shilling had been paid passed through their hands and added them gratuitously to the ranks of the cognoscenti. Then later in the day came from the same Turf agent the straighter tip to the smaller circle of artisans and shopmen who had paid half-a-crown, and later still the straightest tip to the innermost circle of his customers who had paid ten shillings. Not all clerks would have sense and integrity enough not to think that here was a road to fortune made for them by the expert knowledge of some and the credulity of others. So too, after Derby Day, amongst the various crimes—pocket-picking, burglary, assaults, embezzlements—that kept dropping in after and in consequence of that day, attempts at suicide found their place. The first case that meets my eye in some old prison notes is: “Barman, 22, lost place for giving drink away; lost his savings (£80) at betting on horse-races; therefore ‘had the miserables’ and attempted suicide.” So a London coroner, interviewed on the subject of an epidemic of suicide, said: “I always look for suicides after the Derby. After that event you always find that a certain number of shop-assistants have absconded, and a number of other people have committed suicide. They belong to a class of people—much too numerous nowadays—who want to get money without working for it. They fail, and then they go and jump into the river, or something of that sort.