I would fain
pick out anything good from the whole wild spectacle; but I cannot, and
so give up the attempt with a sort of sick despair. There is something
rather pleasant in the sight of a merry lad who attends his first Derby,
for he sees only the vivid rush and movement of crowds; but to a
seasoned observer and thinker the tremendous panorama gives suggestions
only of evil. I hardly have patience to consider the fulsome talk of the
writers who print insincerities by the column year by year. They know
that the business is evil, and yet they persist in speaking as if there
were some magic influence in the reeking crowd which, they declare,
gives health and tone to body and mind. The dawdling parties who lunch
on the Hill derive no particular harm; but then how they waste money and
time! Plunderers of all sorts flourish in a species of blind whirl of
knavery; but no worthy person derives any good from the cruel waste of
money and strength and energy. The writers know all this, and yet they
go on turning out their sham cordiality, sham congratulations, sham
justifications; while any of us who know thoroughly the misery and
mental death and ruin of souls brought on by racing and gambling are
labelled as un-English or churlish or something of the kind.
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