Well-meaning persons spend money on respectable institutes for working men, but the men do not care for staid, dull proceedings after their work is over; they want excitement. A moderately heavy bet supplies them with a topic for conversation; it gives them all the keen pleasures of anticipation as the day of the race draws near, and when they open the paper to see the final result they are thrilled just as a gambler is thrilled when he throws the dice. No wonder that the mild and moral places of recreation are left empty; no wonder that the public-houses are well filled. If I were asked to name two things which interest the English nation to the supreme degree, I should say--first, Sport; second, Drink. If the strongest Ministry that ever took office attempted to make betting a criminal offence, they would be turned out in a month. Betting is now not a casual amusement, but a serious national pursuit. The perfect honesty with which payments are made by agents is amazing. A man who bets on commission for others may have L100,000 to lay out on a race; every farthing is accounted for, and dishonesty among the higher grades of the betting brotherhood is practically unknown. It is this rigid observance of the point of honour that tempts people like our gang in The Chequers bar to risk their shillings; they know that if they make a right guess their payment is safe. The statesman who called the turf "a vast instrument of national demoralization" was quite right, and if he could have lived to take a tour round the country in this year of grace he would have seen the flower of his nation given over to mean frivolity. Jerry has tutored me in racing matters. He has not a thought that is not derived from the columns of the sporting prints, and his life is passed mainly in searching like a staunch terrier for "certainties." When he is disposed to be communicative, he soon gathers quite an audience in The Chequers, and should he drop a phrase like "George Robinson said to me, 'I've made my own book for Highflyer,'" or "Charley White, the Duke's Motto, wouldn't lay Mountebank any more," the awe-stricken costers stare. Here is a man, a regular toff, and no error--a man who knows such Ringmen as Robinson and White--and yet he will speak to ordinary coves without exhibiting the least pride!