Decidedly, our national ideals are in a queer way. Just think of a
little transaction which occurred in 1887. A noble lord ordered a
miserable jockey boy to pull a horse, so that the animal might lose a
race: the exalted guide of youth was found out, and deservedly packed
off the Turf; but it was only by an accident that the Stewards were able
to catch him. That legislator had funny notions of the duty which he
owed to boyhood: he asked his poor little satellite to play the
scoundrel, and he only did what scores do who are _not_ found out.
A haze hangs about the Turf, and all the principles which should guide
human nature are blurred and distorted; the high-minded, honourable
racing men can do nothing or next to nothing, and the scum work their
will in only too many instances. Every one knows that the ground is
palpitating with corruption, but our national mental disease has so
gained ground that some regard corruption in a lazy way as
being inevitable, while others--including the stay-at-home
horse-racers--reckon it as absolutely admirable.
Some years ago, a pretty little mare was winning the St. Leger easily,
when a big horse cut into her heels and knocked her over. About two
months afterwards, the same wiry little mare was running in an important
race at Newmarket, and at the Bushes she was hauling her jockey out of
the saddle.
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