The Sun.
London, England, 1861-12-31 00:00:00

E "REVUE DES' DUI" MONDE'S"
ON THE TURF.

On some points, as a people, we are singularly
sensitive to external criticism; on none more so
than on those connected with the :sports of the
field. To tell an Englishman that his boots may
be better made, his dinner better served, or his
rooms better furnished, is to go no way towards
exciting his bile. The most prejudiced will grant
that it may be a matter of habit or of taste.
But that any foreigner should have the temerity to
pass in review the " Turf system" of this country—
to exhibit to us our Derby, our Newmarket, our
Tattersall's—to show up our trainers, our jockeys,
our bookmakers, and our betting men, with their
peculiarities of manner and costume, is almost in-
credible. In no unfriendly spirit, however, be it
said, and with considerable power, the Revue des
Deux Mendes exhibits the scenes et mceurs du
turf Angluis. The view taken is eminently
French; the writer deals in the most minute de-
scription, mistaking cause for effect, and assuming
as necessaries the merest accidents of a system. He
paints a charmingly poetical picture of the Eng-
lish turf; touches lightly enough on the incon-
veniences of bookmaking, touting, betting places,
and the " derniere esperance d'une noble maison,
le dragon aile sur le dos duquel un gentilhomme
ruine espere franchir l'abime," &c., exhibits a
knowledge of racing slang, and an occasional igno-
rance of racing facts ; and evidently regards dust,
champagne, wooden dolls, pink bonnets, and crino-
line as the sustaining forces of the English turf.
tiV e will not conduct our reader through these
details, which are familiar to most Englishmen ;
but, as the racing season of 1861 has closed, it
will be no unprofitable task to survey the position
of the British turf and to make M. Alphonse
Esquiro's article a basis for our remarks.
Until very lately, we have been accustomed to
regard the turf as a great national pastime. We
must now reject that name for one more identical
with its extent and interests, and call it an institu-
tion. We do this with much regret; but a specu-
lative science can hardly be regarded as the pastime
of apeople. We believe that it becomes year by year
less identified with the sport of the nation. With
the exception of one or two great saturnalia, a race-
course is no more a scene of enjoyment, a fete na-
tiunale, than the Stock Exchange or the Bourse.
Take away the great southern and northern holy-
days, the Derby and St. Leger, and the racing world
presents one vast scene of unhealthy excitement, cal-
culation, jobbing, and chicanery. So thoroughly
has the national sport been turned into a business,
that the information required compels the admis-
sion of every provincial meeting into the columns:of
the most fastidious journals.
Personal vanity and the desire to be suddenly
rich are the main causes of this unhealthy state of
things. Formerly the proprietors of the great racing
studs were the nobility and the gentlemen of wealth
and position. Little temptation to err was ever
held out to them, and they were bound to support
the honour and integrity of their order. In process
of time, as the means of locomotion increased, the
readiest mode to a flattering freemasonry was
opened by a congeniality of pursuits; and the ac-
quisition of a racing establishment by men of lower
grade naturally followed. Mutual interest broke
down the party wall. In cases where funds were in-
sufficient a partnership has been entered into, and
the ramifications among a different class of men

have so extended racing operations as totally to
change the features and the character of " the
Turf."

But the expenses themselves have induced a sys-
tem of betting and bookmaking based upon scientific
principles, in which it is not so much a question of
abstract excellence in the horse, as his excellence
for a particular purpose. And yet we are asked to
believe that the motive principle and the mainstay
of the Turf is the improvement of the breed of
horses for national purposes ! Is it not rather an
indisputable fact that there were never before so
many worthless animals in training, and that the
early calls upon their imperfect powers, the short
distances, and the lightness of the weights, are
things calculated to perpetuate infirmities already
transmitted, or to produce others not yet existing ?
We are willing to look upon the world in no utopian
light, bat to take it, with its imperfections, as we
find it. We do not suppose that the Turf could exist,
to any practical good, upon Queen's Plates. Stakes
and gambling are, we fear, necessary to its prospe-
rity. An Englishman is said to be especially open to
the influence of a bet. We believe he is so. But why
is that to involve a practice which draws the poor
man from his legitimate business ? Why is it to
transform a carpenter or a weaver into a patron of
the Turf ? Why is it to bring a linendraper's ap-
prentice from behind his counter, or a lawyer's
clerk from off his stool, that he may have the plea-
sure of addressing " My Lord" with " three to one
in ponies," and, after a career of extravagance, end
his days in beggary ? That the breed of horses can
be improved, or the legitimate objects of the Turf
promoted, by the crowd of hangers-on, whose acci-
dents are graphically described by M. Esquires,
seems to us an absurdity. But the system is rife
with inconveniences; it gives opportunities for the
grossest robberies ; it places temptation before those
least able to withstand it ; and it brings the honest
and legitimate sportsman before the world in a
false position. Formerly the possession of a racing
stud was the mark of an honourable station ; in
these days it is too often allied with well-grounded
suspicion and distrust.

One of the advantages attendant upon English
sport is the increased energy that it calls into play,
the legitimate occupation it gives to many who
might otherwise swell the poor-rate or people the
county-gaol. Hunting, shooting, and racing, all
fulfil their objects in this respect. Huntsmen,
second horsemen, helpers, keepers, watchers,
trainers, jockeys, and stable-boys may all thank
the national mania that gives them employment.
But that racing should become a mere cold mat-
ter of calculation, unrelieved by that geniality
which has redeemed sport in times gone by from
every charge; that it should be itself the hotbed
of vices which oppose honourable exertion, the
temple of illicit barter, excites some curiosity, not
over-complimentary, in minds unaccustomed to re-
gard it from the same point of view.
It is not remarkable that the French writer whom
we have quoted above should have struck upon
some of the salient points for the exercise of his
pen. But we should have been much surprised had
those salients yielded to his attacks. He strikes the
surface ; he levels his ordnance at our jockeys, their
assumption of fashionable life, their oaths, their
champagne suppers, their cigars, and their " bonnes
fortunes :" these " joujois du turf," who " inspirent
des passions fortes et romanesques." The bird's-eye
view he has taken shows him their power, their
capabilities, their vices ; but it does not exhibit to
him the peculiarities of a. system which is account-
able for them. It has not occurred to him that
weight is at the bottom of these accidents ; that
when the Turf requires a race of men or boys whose
weight is to vary from about five to eight stone, and
not go beyond it, the demand will more than equal
the supply ; that when we attack the weight under
which the good, bad, and indifferent are tube brought
to the post, we call in question the age at which the
horses are to run, and raise a host of hornets about
us, whose only hope is in handicaps. When boys
are placed in a situation where discipline ends and
temptation begins, we can find excuse for the fall,
but none for the system. As a general rule, children
introduced to the dissipation of men are not long in
acquiring a taste for it; the taste must be gratified;
and the principles of honesty, however insisted on,
are not so rooted in the Turf as to prevent error.
Nothing marks so decidedly the character of the
present system as the position and the tactics of its
supporters. In 20 or 30 years we have become
familiar with even a new vocabulary to distinguish
the men and the measures by which the Turf is
disgraced. Prophets, tips'ers, and welshers—the
parasites of the ring—aro flourishing upon the in-
fatuation or the ignorance of society. Pay a visit
on the eve, or the settling day, of any of the great
so,i the doors and windows of certain sporting
"").18.1.na. Re
'vary froto.umr_e the motley groups, whose interests
care nothing an-rteZrni to some few sovereigns, who
generous animals,on_l'2'tiling for the sport, or the
vurnea in it, but whose whole