So we fought our way into the enclosure in the very centre of the competitive clamour. Never have I heard such a noise; never seen human faces so distorted by vociferousness. It was a remarkable scene. Everyone there was doing a thing which it is generally agreed by statesmen and sociologists is bad, and which, if it is done outside the course, is illegal. Some of the leading men in the land were here, and the Monarch and Defender of the Faith was in a box just above. Enough money to endow all the hospitals of the country was changing hands lightly over the issue of a contest between a dozen horses; and not one penny of it was going to the country, except indirectly, later on, in the form of death duties or income tax. For we do not make racing men or bookmakers pay a farthing towards the exchequer for their amusement. Even France, which has never pretended that betting was wrong and holds its most popular race-meetings on Sunday, makes the betting class pay two and a half per cent. of its winnings to the hospitals of the land; but in England we allow this great source of revenue to go untouched. I afterwards asked Sir Gaston how this was. "Simple enough," he said. "If you tax betting you legalize it; and then you have all Nonconformity in arms against you." "But we let it go on," I said. "Yes," he replied, "but that's England. We have a profound aptitude as a nation for closing one eye." "The odd thing about England in that respect," I said, "is that, individually, all the Englishmen that one meets agree that we are absurdly illogical if not hypocritical; yet in the mass these hypocrisies are encouraged. How is that? In France the units are representative of the national feeling; in England the units are not representative." "I don't know," said Sir Gaston. "The same problem has perplexed me. I'm not proud of the anomaly." "Are they all Jews?" I asked Dollie, in the ring. "Nearly all, and the owners, too," said Dollie; "but that's all right. What's the matter with Jews? They're good enough Christians, most of them. Here's a tip-topper anyway," and he stopped to speak to an eager anxious man in a white hat who, if he was not a Jew, had been vaccinated with Hebrew lymph. I was introduced to the tip-top Christian and he wished me a lucky day. "No money about," he said, "compared with what it used to be." "Do you mean there's less betting?" I inquired. "Oh no, much more," he said, "but; it's chiefly S.P. now. They don't do it here as they used."