The Sun.
London, England, 1866-06-11 00:00:00

Betting and Wet thing.

The facetious correspondent of the Racing Times
writes as follows about "Welchers" and "Bears:"—

Betting is a science pursued almost more or less
universally by the adult male population of these
realms—it is generated in a flexible system of
ethics, bymeans of which one person intends to ex-
tract the circulating medium from the pockets of
another with as little trouble as possible. The
science is not confined to horse racing, for if it were
very little damage would be done as a rule, indeed
no practical damage at all provided layers and
takers of odds only risked such part of their surplus
capital as they could fairly afford, and each party
fulfilled his contract. Welching means a course
of dealing where one person obtains the money of
another under pretence of betting odds, with an
actual or implied undertaking to return not only
the cash staked and the sum which he has
laid to it, ;,but ,when the event has come off
deliberately bolting with the whole, and laughing
at his victim. This is not by any means a pleasant
state of things, and it can scarce be wondered at if
the party plundered should take loud and sum-
mary measure of justice. But just now the whole
community is shaking from practices of this kind
in business, ultra racing, where
.the cause is the
same and the result different. I described, in a
former article, the unfortunate fate of a poor devil

who had victimised some of the smaller town in-
vestors. A personage of greater weight had been
previously tarred with the same brush, and the
violence used on that occasion became the subject
of inquiry before a criminal tribunal, and very pro-
perly
onl;tvs\f,osro
fifmseuuent:
aantahtolruotiungh re
was
diospegnlayrdtoobfe tholeercaotneid-
min an empire, showing on the surface the highest
condition of public morals, what security could
there be for any one if lawless and savage liberty
were to take the place of calm and well-established
jurisprudence ?
This was a case exactly on all fours with what
has been going on in the City during the merry
month of May. While the alleged I'Velcher was
plying his vocation in the ordinary way, receiving.
cash and issuing in exchange his small bits of paste-
board, the public suddenly took alarm. Customers,
with or without reason, demand their money back,
cause a wild run upon the bank ; the banker cannot,
or will not, meet his engagements, and "runs" too
—the public run after him, and after a series of
brutal attacks, one gentleman from Brummagem,
more venturesome than the rest, thrusts both hands
in the banker's pockets, brings forth as much coin
as he can clutch,and so attempt to gain a preference
over ordinary creditors instead of waiting to wind
up the concern in the usual manner ; and as a warn-
ing to indiscreet claimants the Judge consigns the
party to durance vile for a month, where, unless Sir
George Grey interposes, he is to remain for a great
part of June. Snug quarters during the present
fine weather.

Where is the material difference between the ex-
citing scenes in London and larger provincial
towns, where stockbrokers have of late years congre-
gated, and the smaller but not less volatile betting
ring ? Both classes are bulls and bears speculating
for the rise or fall in much the same way. Settling
days come regular on the Exchange and at Knights-
bridge. The Levant mail is occasionally patronised,
from each quarter. A bank is selected for destruc-
tion. Bears go for its fall•--nefarious machinery is
set to work ; all kinds of doubts and distrust are
raised to its prejudice—the shares get lower and
lower, and before the account has degenerated
comparatively to zero the bears make gigantic
hauls, and an honest, safe, immense establishment,
with branches in the provinces and agencies in dis-
tant lands, is compelled to close its doors, spreading
ruin in many places, and immense temporary in-
convenience in others, all because unscrupulous per-
sons have marked, and are daily marking, banks in-
stead of horses to bet against, and those layers who
have the " straight tip" invariably go in and win !
The wide-spread ruin caused by the modern law

of limited liability necessarily affects more or less

votaries of pleasure of all classes. The more re-
stricted the liability in some circles the less possi-
bility there seems of getting accounts squared. My
friend, Mr. Julius Pyles, a young gentleman of
slender means and eccentric betting notions com-
plained that he had deposited small sums in the cool
region of Snow-hill, near the ;remains of Skinner-
street, and that Cox (not the Finsbury celebrity),
who formerly carried on business in that busy loca-
lity, declined to cash up through having been re-
quired to scrape together every shilling of
his small resources for the payment of calls
in the General Cat's Meat Company (Limited),
but that he had been advised to summon the
defaulter to the great City-hall, vhere summary
justice is generally dealt out in such matters, a step
in the prudence of which I entirely concurred.
Welchers, like mad dogs, are said to have a great
antipathy to water, and it is very likely to be true,
for I have noticed that race meetings held in aquatic
localities are'generally free from these pests. The
Windsor Summer was inaugurated on Tuesday on
a new spot, just the actual pitch to score off the