Observe that one
race-horse--Buccaneer--has been known to cover a mile at the rate of
fifty-four feet per second; it is therefore pretty certain that at his
very highest speed he could move at sixty feet per second. Very good; it
happens then that a horse which wins a race by one foot is about
one-sixtieth of a second faster, than the beaten animal. What a dolt you
must be to imagine that any man in the world could possibly tell you
which of those two brutes was likely to be the winner! It is the merest
guess-work; you have all the chances against you and you might as well
bet on the tossing of halfpence. The bookmaker does not need to care,
for he is safe whatever may win; but you are defying all the laws of
chance; and, although you may make one lucky hit, you must fare ill in
the end." But no commonsensical talk seems to have any effect on the
insensate fellows who are the betting-man's prey, and thus this precious
sport has become a source of idleness, theft, and vast misery. One
wretch goes under, but the stock of human folly is unlimited, and the
shoal of gudgeons moves steadily into the bookmaker's net. One
betting-agent in France receives some five thousand letters and
telegrams per day, and all this huge correspondence comes from persons
who never take the trouble to see a race, but who are bitten with the
gambler's fever.
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