self-possession, after a steady perusal of Mr Walter’s benefactions. It
is noticeable that the standard of verse employed by these
philanthropists is about on a par with their standard of morality. It
seems wonderful that any sane person should believe in the existence of
a certain guide to the winning-post, and the idea that, if there had
been such a thing, Messrs Balliee & Walter would have assuredly used it
for themselves alone, never seems to have entered into the heads of
their victims, at all events until too late. After the vaunt about
position and information, the intimates of “the _élite_ of the racing
world” go on:--
MESSRS. BALLIEE and WALTER, alone of all firms that undertake
Discretionary Investments, are to be seen personally in the Ring, and
they wish to draw the attention of Turf speculators to the fact that
NO OTHER ADVERTISERS ARE OWNERS OF HORSES, despite what they may say
to the contrary. If their systems equalled ours, would they not accept
the challenge given by us for the past twelve months in the various
sporting papers? Vide commencement of advertisement.
So sanguine are we of success at Epsom, the innumerable and peculiar
advantages presented, and every facility being offered for the
successful working of our
DISCRETIONARY METHOD,
that we are enabled to
GUARANTEE AGAINST LOSS,
and assert with confidence that
WINNING IS REDUCED TO AN ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY.
DEPOSIT REQUIRED FOR DISCRETIONARY INVESTMENTS AT THE
EPSOM SUMMER MEETING:--
£500, £100, £50, £25, £10, or £5.
By investing in accordance with this infallible method of backing our
final selections at the post, loss is simply an impossibility, and
guaranteed against,
WINNING BEING REDUCED TO AN ABSOLUTE
CERTAINTY.
This often-repeated assertion (and not once contradicted for the past
five years), and the winnings realised weekly for subscribers who
patronise this system, is sufficient to prove its intrinsic value.
This is just the sort and class of meeting for gentlemen of capital
and systematic investors to invest a £500 or £1,000 bank, being indeed
a golden opportunity that all should embrace. The fact of our
guaranteeing
A WIN EQUAL TO OUR SUCCESS OF LAST SUMMER,
and, as previously stated,
GUARANTEE TO HOLD THE INVESTOR AGAINST LOSS OF EVEN A
FRACTIONAL PART OF CAPITAL EMPLOYED,
should be sufficient to convince gentlemen of the true character and
value of this infallible method of backing our final selections at the
post.
CAN ANY SYSTEM BE SO LUCRATIVE TO THE
INVESTOR?
Our position as owners of horses and proprietors of “THE KINGSCLERE
RACING CIRCULAR,” the most successful medium of all Turf advices, and
has treble the circulation of any other circular published; the
flattering encomiums passed on our “Infallible Method” by the Sporting
Press of the United Kingdom, and being recommended by them as
“The only recognised method by which backers of horses can win
large sums at all the principal meetings;”
coupled with our position as the most influential Commission Agents
both in the London and Manchester Markets, ensure gentlemen entrusting
us with Discretionary Investments being fairly and honestly dealt
with, and the successes that we promise and achieve meeting after
meeting in the columns of this and other papers.
* * * * *
FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS.
The following average results speak volumes in favour of this
method:--
The following successes have been achieved this season by
THE KINGSCLERE RACING CIRCULAR’S
INFALLIBLE METHOD
OF
DISCRETIONARY INVESTMENTS.
Each £25 investor at Enfield received nett winnings value £200.
Each £10 investor at Lichfield was remitted by Thursday’s post (April
13) £82 10s., being winnings and stake included, after the 5 per cent.
commission had been deducted.
Each investor of a £10 stake at the Lincoln Meeting received nett
winnings of £180 10s. by Tuesday’s post, March 28.
Each investor at Liverpool in accordance with this system, on two
investments, viz.,
THE LAMB Win,
SCARRINGTON A place,
realised £75 with each £10 invested.
A £10 stake realised £200 nett winnings at the Burton (Lincoln)
Meeting.
A £25 stake invested on Waterloo Cup realised £300,
MASTER MCGRATH
being selected right throughout the piece, and again in finals with
Pretender.
A £10 stake realised at the Cambridgeshire Meeting the sum of £240
nett winnings.
A £5 stake at the West Drayton Meeting realised £30 nett winnings.
Bromley and several other meetings were also highly successful.
At Croxton Park each £10 invested realised £102 nett.
Each £25 invested at Thirsk realised £150.
THE ABOVE AMOUNTS HAVE BEEN PAID THIS SEASON TO ALL PATRONS WHO
ENTRUSTED US WITH DISCRETIONARY INVESTMENTS OVER THESE MEETINGS, again
proving the value of this method over all others advertised.
The past augurs well for the future, as the above successes testify.
We personally attend EPSOM, and are always successful at this meeting.
A LOSS HAS NEVER OCCURRED TO FOLLOWERS OF OUR SYSTEM, and this season
we are even more than ever confident of success.
Cash reaching us on Thursday will be in time for two days’
investments; and cash arriving by Friday’s first post will be invested
on Oaks winner and the last day of the meeting.
Five per cent. deducted from all winnings.
THE LARGER THE STAKE, THE GREATER SCOPE IS AVAILABLE
FOR LUCRATIVE SPECULATION.
LOSS OF STAKE IS IN ALL CASES GUARANTEED AGAINST.
The opulent winnings realised weekly throughout the season cannot fail
to convince systematic speculators that this system is the par
excellence of all methods for winning large sums at each and every
important race-gathering.
Winnings and account of investments will be forwarded on Monday, May
29.
Investors can have their winnings (less 5 per cent.) remitted by open
cheque or bank notes, as preferred, by signifying their wishes on that
point when remitting cash for investment.
One trial is sufficient to prove to the most sceptical the value of
this method over all others advertised. Gentlemen who have lost their
money in the so-called winning modus swindles, or through following
their own fancies, advice of puffing tipsters, newspaper selections,
backing first favourites, jockeys’ mounts, or any other system, should
give our infallible method a trial at the Epsom Meeting. Cash should
be forwarded to reach us on or before Tuesday, addressed to Mr W. H.
WALTER, 62 Jamaica-street, Glasgow. If after that date, address
letters, &c., &c., W. H. WALTER (of Kingsclere), Box 20, Post-office,
Epsom, where due precaution has been taken for their safe delivery.
Cheques to be crossed, Bank, Newbury. Letters containing gold or notes
to be registered. Scotch and Irish notes taken as cash. Stamps, 20s.
6d. to the pound. P.O. Orders in all cases to be made payable to W. H.
WALTER, and drawn on the Post-office, Newbury, Berkshire.
⁂ The successes we achieve weekly, our social status on the Turf, the
years we have been before the public, the fact of our being promoters
of Discretionary Investments, our selecting Jack Spigot for City and
Suburban, Vulcan for Lincoln Handicap, the Lamb for Grand National,
Bothwell for Two Thousand, Mortemer (a place), Chester Cup, the Dwarf
for Great Northern Handicap; Lord Hawthorn, Flying Dutchman’s
Handicap; Stanley, Doncaster Handicap, with nearly every other winner
at York and Doncaster, &c., prove the value of our information and the
integrity and value of our system of backing Discretionary
Investments.
* * * * *
THE
KINGSCLERE RACING CIRCULAR of Friday next (May 26), price 1s., will
contain a Review of the Derby running, and the WINNER OF THE ASCOT
STAKES, with some important notes anent ROYAL HUNT CUP and ST. LEGER,
with selections and keys for all races at the Manchester, Scarborough,
Winchester, West Drayton, and Wye Meetings. Notes on the Two Year Old
Form of the Season, and a Bird’s-eye View of the Middle Park Plate,
being particulars of Walter’s Visit to the Dark Two Year Olds at their
Training Grounds. Terms:--Season, 21s.--Address orders and letters, W.
H. WALTER (of Kingsclere), Ravenscourt Park, Hammersmith, London, W.
In thanking our Derby subscribers for their past support, we
respectfully solicit a continuance of their favours on the above
terms.
The Private Telegraphic Key Book will be issued to Season Subscribers
only in the course of a few days. Those that intend renewing their
subscriptions should do so at once.
It must not be imagined that this advertisement was intended to obtain
one large haul before the business was abandoned. With little alteration
it ran for a very considerable time in many papers, and the expenses of
advertising alone must have been enormous. For it is not to be expected
that any blind credulity exhibited itself in the various publishing
offices, and hard cash, and plenty of it, had to be expended before a
line of Balliee & Walter’s was allowed to appear. It will be seen by
what we have quoted that winnings and accounts of investments are
promised on Monday, and in true business-like style every depositor
received his envelope. With what feverish anxiety many must have torn
open the enclosure! So many men, so many minds, says the proverb, and
the ways of expressing wrath must have been various indeed. We are,
however, not in a position to furnish any particulars as to how the news
was received, it is enough to know what the information was. And, as may
be guessed, it was not satisfactory. The circulars were always neatly
constructed, and set forth with a regret that owing to a combination of
untoward circumstances the hopes of the chief investor, “the man at the
post,” had been dashed, and for that week--always the first week of such
an occurrence--matters had resulted disastrously. Then would follow a
statement of account, in which it was shown that investments had been
fortunate at the outset, that then they had changed, and that by placing
too much money on an apparent certainty, so as to recover the losings,
the whole bulk of the bank had departed, never to return. The sums
received by Messrs Balliee & Walter were of course various, and
according to the amount, so was the table arranged; but there was a
great family likeness about them all, the principle being to show that
the horses, when they did not win, were very close up, and so seconds,
with now and again a third, were nearly always chosen! Thus one £10
stake for the Derby week of 1871--the week in which the advertisement
given appears--was accounted for thus:--
Epsom, Tuesday, May 23. Won. Lost.
Trial Stakes, Manille, -- £0 10 0
Horton Stakes, Trident, -- 1 0 0
Maiden Plate, Queen Bee, -- 2 0 0
Rous Stakes, Banderolle, -- 0 10 0
Woodcote Stakes, Cremorne (11 to 8 on), £0 14 6 --
Wednesday.
Bentinck Plate, Lady Atholstone, -- 0 10 0
Derby, King of the Forest, -- 1 0 0
Stanley Stakes, Hamilton, -- 2 0 0
Match, Lizzie Cowl (5 to 4 on), 0 8 0 --
Manor Stakes, Holdenby, -- 0 10 0
Town Plate, Banderolle, -- 1 0 0
Thursday.
Glasgow Plate, Countryman (2 to 1 on), 0 5 0 --
High Level Handicap, Free Trade, -- 0 10 0
Two-year-old Stakes, Clotilde filly, -- 1 0 0
Tadworth Stakes, Manna, -- 2 0 0
£1 7 6 £12 10 0
With five per cent. commission charged on the winnings, this left a
balance £1, 3s. 9½d. due to Messrs Balliee & Walter, which it was hoped
would be at once remitted. This was cruel, but crueller still was the
statement, that had the stake been larger, affairs would have arranged
themselves satisfactorily, as a great change took place at the close of
Thursday and on Friday, and those whose banks lasted over the first run
of ill-luck left off winners of large sums. With the demand for payment
of balance came a request which, from its very coolness, must have
staggered those who, being once victimised, could see through the
swindle, though in very many instances--as if in corroboration of Mr
Carlyle’s theory--it was complied with. This was a desire for a fresh
trial, and positive security from loss was guaranteed. It is noticeable
in the table given that by a judicious selection of races and horses the
winnings were bound to be always low, as animals with odds on are
selected, and that when stakes are lowest. When on the doubling
principle the stake on the chosen winner would be inconveniently large a
race was omitted. The returns made were necessarily various, but that
given is an accurate representative of the system.
Balliee & Walter continued to flourish for a long time; but whether it
was that they became individually greedy, whether newspaper proprietors
became exorbitant in their demands on the spoil, or whether rivalry
affected them, we know not, all we do know is that they committed a most
openly outrageous act on a race-course, and the bubble at once burst. It
may seem strange that anything discretionary-investment agents, who had
been gradually becoming a byword and a reproach, could do would affect
their position; but our duty is to record the fact, and not to allow it
to be disputed on any theoretic grounds. If they had calmly continued to
merely swindle, they might have advertised till now; but they outraged
the sanctity of the British race-course, and were damned for all time,
if not to all eternity. They had become possessed by some means or other
of a hurdle-racer called Goodfellow, and two or three weeks before one
of the suburban gate-money meetings they made a match for him to run a
race at it against a very moderate mare. Immediately this was done they
circularised all customers, telling them to be sure and back Goodfellow,
as he could not possibly lose, and stating that on account of very heavy
investments already made, they could afford, as a favour to their
clients, to return them double the odds which would be laid against
Goodfellow on the day. In the _Kingsclere Racing Circular_, a weekly
pamphlet issued by these honourable gentlemen, we find under date March
10, 1871, the following ingenious application. This, it has been since
proved, brought heavy sums to the Ravenscourt Park exchequer, whence it
was not allowed to depart, Messrs Balliee & Walter, like true and
legitimate bookmakers, preferring to lay the 6 to 4’s against their own
horse themselves, rather than that their patrons should be
inconvenienced by having to take shorter prices from others:--
CROYDON SPECIAL INVESTMENT.
The match--Goodfellow v. Harriett--will come off at Croydon on Tuesday
next. It is simply a matter of putting the coin down and picking it up
again. It is any odds on our horse, and as we wish our Subscribers to
participate in this certainty, we will undertake to obtain for them 6
to 4 for all cash sent, which must reach Mr Walter, Ravenscourt Park,
if possible by Monday evening, and not later than Tuesday’s first
post. Gibson is sure to back Harriett for a 1000, and probably bring
her favourite. The sole reason of us wishing Subscribers to allow us
to invest for them, is to prevent them rushing on and spoiling the
market, which will be to their interest as well as our own. We have
engaged one of the cleverest cross country riders of the day to ride
Goodfellow, and our horse never was so fit and well as at the present
time. Daniels will have the mount of Harriett. Such a chance may not
occur again throughout the season. Investors should speculate a £50 or
£100 Bank. We cannot undertake to invest more than £300 for any one of
our patrons.
By this means Balliee & Walter obtained from their purblind dupes a
large amount of money with which to back Goodfellow, and of this they of
course placed as much as they could upon Harriett, the opposing
candidate. In the race, if race so iniquitous a transaction can be
called, the discretionary-investment horse was, as might have been
expected, “pulled,” so that Balliee & Walter had all the money they
received to the good, besides what they won from the unsuspecting by
backing the animal they had pretended to oppose. This led to their
gradually disappearing from the front pages of the newspapers, though
they continued their business under an _alias_ very successfully. Walter
was eventually fined a hundred pounds at one of the metropolitan courts,
under the Betting-House Act, 1853, for having carried on a part of his
business at Hammersmith. It seems rather ludicrous that a man should
have been fined for what he in reality never did. But lawyers and
magistrates could not distinguish the difference between betting and
only pretending to bet, so they fined Mr Walter just as they would have
done if he had been a really honourable man, and had therefore deserved
punishment.
From the discretionary-investment class of turf-swindler we will now
pass on to another, quite as ingenious and very often as dangerous. A
few years back, when opportunity served--that is, when the honest layer
of odds was harassed by the police and driven from London, and when good
men and bad were almost irremediably mixed up--a sharp rogue hit upon an
idea for making the tipstering and private-advice business a means to
quite a new phase of imposition. This was known among those who profited
by it as “forcing the voucher,” and a very pretty little game it was
while it lasted, though the profits of pioneers were of course
considerably diminished as soon as ever the secret got wind, by the
imitative faculty to which reference has been already made. Commencing,
as usual, with small advertisements and large profits, forcers in time
found themselves, by stress of competition, obliged to spend a good
share of their hard earnings in specially-tempting invitations to those
who would go any but the right way towards being wealthy; or else to
seek other courses. So in 1872 we find three or four firms occupying a
large share of the papers, and giving forth promises without stint.
Whether the original forcer was in any of these partnerships it is
impossible to tell, as the names were, as a rule, fictitious, and often
changed; but whether or not, it is certain that those who advertised
heaviest drove all small thieves from the field, and so, two years back,
the business, as far as we are concerned, was carried on chiefly by
Adkins & Wood, Robert Danby & Co., Marshall & Grant, and James Rawlings
& Co., who advertised quite separately, but whose notifications might
very easily have been the work of one pen. We will therefore take
Rawlings & Co. to represent the fraternity, and in their advertisement
which appeared at the end of April 1872 will be found the peculiarities
of all the others. This is it:--
DIGBY GRAND sent to every season subscriber, and for a place at
6 to 1, to every reader of
THE PREMIER RACING CIRCULAR.
Proprietors,
JAMES RAWLINGS and Co.,
65, YORK PLACE,
EDINBURGH.
Published by the Proprietors every Saturday, at their chief office, 65
York Place, Edinburgh.
THE PREMIER RACING CIRCULAR still maintains its well-merited
reputation as the only infallible and unerringly-successful winning
guide, by the aid of which private backers can and do, week by week,
realise hundreds of pounds with perfect safety over the principal
races throughout the kingdom. The uninterrupted series of successes
which have attended its vaticinations during past seasons have been
gloriously crowned by the success of every special investment advised
in its pages this season, as will be seen by the following list of
winners already given:--
Price at which
clients were
Race. Selection. Result. put on.
Croydon Footman Won 15 to 1
Lincoln Handicap Guy Dayrell Won 20 to 1
Grand National Casse Tête Won 25 to 1
Nottingham Handicap Flurry Won 10 to 1
Great Warwick Handicap Cedric the Saxon Won 12 to 1
Warwick Grand Annual Snowstorm Won 7 to 1
Northamptonshire Stakes Messager Won 8 to 1
City and Suburban Digby Grand Won 25 to 1
Thus a £10 stake on each of our selections already made this season
has now won the handsome sum £1,164 after deducting our commission of
5 per cent.
If one statement of the above glorious triumph is untrue, we boldly
invite our subscribers and clients to expose us in the fullest manner
in the sporting papers. Promptitude, despatch, exactitude, and
liberality, as in the past, will ever be our watchwords in the future.
Every reader of “The Sporting Life” is earnestly invited to send at
once for this week’s number, as the information therein contained will
enable everyone to win a little fortune over that splendid and highly
lucrative mode of investment--
A DOUBLE EVENT
That cannot be upset.
The positive Winners of
THE TWO THOUSAND
and
ONE THOUSAND GUINEAS.
It is rarely that we advise this method of investing, but when we have
sent out to our clients a double event it has never failed to come
off. Last year we advised a double event for these races--
Two Thousand Bothwell Won
One Thousand Hannah Won
And this year both our selections are, if possible, greater and more
undeniable certainties.
THE TWO THOUSAND GUINEAS.
Of all the good things that in the course of a long and varied
experience on the Turf it has ever been our good fortune to be
possessed of, we cannot recall a single occasion on which every
attendant circumstance combined so surely to render, as in the present
instance, the race such an absolute foregone conclusion for our
selection. The trial which took place this week was unprecedented in
its severity, and, to the surprise of owner and trainer, the animal
performed so far beyond their most sanguine expectations or hopes as
to show them that success is reduced to the greatest moral certainty
ever known in the history of the English Turf. This is an opportunity
similar to those that have made the fortunes of many of our most
wealthy speculators, for whom, as in the present instance, victory is
a foregone conclusion and defeat a moral impossibility. Everyone
should seize the opportunity of reaping the rich harvest of golden
fruit that awaits the bold speculator of foregone conclusions like
this.
THE ONE THOUSAND GUINEAS.
It is to us an easy task to select the winner of this race, as the
immense superiority she enjoys over every other animal engaged (known
only to owner, trainer, and ourselves) is so vast that this race will
be little more than an exercise canter for this speedy filly. So
quietly has this good thing been nursed by the shrewd division to
which the mare belongs, that a real good price is now to be had,
though when this superb specimen of an English thoroughbred is seen at
the post, we are confident that even money will be eagerly snapped up
by those who till then neglect to back her.
THE DOUBLE EVENT,
as stated above, is as sure to come off as these lines are in print.
Send then at once for this week’s number, and do not delay an hour if
you wish to land a fortune over these two genuine certainties.
We could wish no better opportunity to display the genuine good things
sent out by the “Premier Racing Circular” than these two races
present, and we beg that everyone will at once send six stamps and
stamped addressed envelope for this week’s number, and stand these
morals to win them a fortune.
Address--
JAMES RAWLINGS and Co.,
65, YORK PLACE,
EDINBURGH.
If we were not certain that these men got large sums of money from
willing victims, it would seem almost impossible that people could be
found credulous enough to believe that absolute certainty could be
secured on the turf. Certainty of losing is naturally much easier than
certainty of winning, and yet even loss cannot be reduced to less than
imminent probability so long as a horse goes to the post unphysicked,
and the jockey is not allowed to openly pull him. And so, though no one
will attempt to defend Messrs Rawlings & Co., their dupes deserve but
the smallest amount of pity; for even the most foolish of them must have
known that certainty of winning to them must have meant certainty of
losing to the other side, and that therefore, even if the contract had
been carried out, somebody must have been swindled. If it were not for
the greed and avarice which mainly direct the actions of those who are
generally known as fools, magsmen, sharpers, discretionary-investment
commissioners, and voucher-forcers would have to take to honest
employment. This may seem a truism, yet when a skittle-sharper or
“street-mugger” is tried in a police court, and convicted for having
victimised a “flat,” it never seems to strike the magistrate or the
general public that the prisoner simply swindled a man who had all the
will but not the ability to swindle him. And there can be no reasonable
doubt--we should much like to see the matter tried--that the principal
supports of rogues are the most grasping, selfish, and hard-hearted of
mortals, and not at all the soft, good-natured bumpkins that they are
generally depicted. We should not like to trust to either the honour or
the honesty of any man who had been concerned even as a victim in one of
the transactions which now and again appear in the police reports; and
if we had any sympathy, which is not very likely, to bestow on either
side, it would certainly be given to the man who gets sent to prison.
Rawlings & Co. seem to have managed the spring campaign of 1872 very
successfully, for while other members of the same brotherhood had to
drop out of the papers or to appear in new guise after April, we find
our heroes still merrily addressing the public from the front page of
the sporting papers of June 8, and as able to guarantee freedom from
loss as ever. And though it may not seem long from the end to April to
this early part of June, it must be recollected that within that space
several very important meetings are held, and that dismal gaps are
found in the ranks of both “wrong” and “right” men after a Derby,
especially after such a Derby as Cremorne’s, which found out the weak
spots in a good many big books, and altered the prospects of many a
turfite, professional and amateur. So finding Rawlings so well through,
we were tempted at the time to communicate with him, and discover the
principle upon which he “forced the voucher.” Here is his advertisement
of June 8, in which he glories in past triumphs and feels confident of
future successes:--
CREMORNE, QUEEN’S MESSENGER, AND REINE.
JAMES RAWLINGS and Co., the oldest established Turf advisers in Great
Britain; proprietors of
THE PREMIER RACING CIRCULAR,
the most successful winning guide extant.
* * * * *
THE PREMIER RACING CIRCULAR, selected Cremorne
and Reine.
* * * * *
THE PREMIER RACING CIRCULAR of this day contains
three certainties.
* * * * *
THE PREMIER RACING CIRCULAR’S selections pulled off the double event
for the Derby and Oaks, likewise Queen’s Messenger for a place at 4 to
1.
* * * * *
THE PREMIER RACING CIRCULAR has this season selected each and every
important winner, as may be seen by referring to back numbers of this
publication, invaluable alike to large and small speculators. The
proprietors beg respectfully to draw the attention of that section of
the public who have neglected to take advantage of the opportunities
that they have, for the past three months, weekly drawn attention to
in the columns of this and other journals, that this week’s number of
the Premier Racing Circular will contain three of the greatest morals
and most undeniable certainties ever known in this or any other era of
the Turf’s history, namely, the winner of
THE ASCOT STAKES,
a real good thing, at a real good price. Over this race any gentleman
may safely invest as heavily as he may think fit, as we know that our
selection cannot be beaten; the course is peculiarly adapted to the
animal’s action, and the stable have satisfied themselves, past
question or doubt, that he possesses both speed and stamina to land
this event with the utmost ease.
THE ROYAL HUNT CUP
is equally a certainty for a veritable flyer, whose merits have
hitherto been so cleverly concealed by the owner, that the handicapper
has no idea of his sterling excellence. He is undergoing a special
preparation for this race, the best light-weight in the world will be
in the saddle, and a long price is now to be had.
THE NORTHUMBERLAND PLATE.
We have never yet missed selecting the winner of this race, and as the
cleverest division on the Turf, as to whose movements we are always au
fait, have specially laid themselves out to secure this prize, the
public may rely upon it that, as in past years, we shall again select
the winner.
This week’s number contains full particulars of these undeniable and
gold-producing morals, in addition to a mass of other information
invaluable to backers. No one should invest a shilling on any one of
the above races without first forwarding us six stamps and stamped
directed envelope for this week’s issue.
Address--
JAMES RAWLINGS and Co.,
65, YORK PLACE,
EDINBURGH.
Six stamps and a stamped directed envelope were accordingly sent, and in
return we received a copy of the _Premier Racing Circular_, dated June
6, which was full of congratulations, and which promised far more than
even the advertisements did. One paragraph in it was specially worthy of
attention. It ran thus: “_We have several commissions still unsettled
over the Derby and Oaks. Gentlemen holding winning vouchers will please
send them in at once._” What could be more fair, honourable, and
straightforward than this; and who would think of suspecting Rawlings of
unfair dealing? Yet, at the very time the invitation we have quoted
appeared, the people who sent in their winning vouchers received in
return, not money, but the following circular, which we reprint exactly,
and which, with the alteration of the signature and the name of the
meeting, will do for any firm and any week’s racing the reader may
choose. This is one of a lot we have collected at times from many
victims:--
65 YORK PLACE, EDINBURGH.
SIR,
We regret to inform you that, in consequence of some of our important
Accounts not having been settled at Epsom this week, we must
unavoidably postpone the settlement. This is the first time that such
an unpleasantness has occurred, but we can assure you that we have
done all in our power in the matter. No one regrets this unfortunate
affair more than ourselves, after serving the public so faithfully for
such a number of years, and all we can do is to remit you immediately
we receive winnings from the temporarily embarrassed Commissioners.
Meanwhile, We remain,
Yours faithfully,
JAMES RAWLINGS & CO.
There is no boast in the statement, that when we received the _Premier
Racing Circular_, we were pretty well acquainted with the manner in
which Rawlings conducted his business--it would be a poor thing to boast
about--and so we turned to the envelope to look for the vouchers we knew
would be there. And there they were, enclosed in a piece of paper, on
which was the information, that owing to the large sums they had
invested when the horses were at long shots, they could afford to return
odds considerably over the current market; and winding up with a request
that intending backers would at once forward the amounts for which the
vouchers were filled in, or any part of it which would suit them. Yes,
there they were, three in number, looking like cheques--the first, No.
32,323, being for the Ascot Stakes, and bearing the bet of £200 to £10
against Palmerston for the Ascot Stakes. The second was numbered 36,162,
and said £300 to £10 Pitchfork for the Royal Hunt Cup; and the third was
39,346, and was to the tune of £400 to £20 Minerve for the
Northumberland Plate. And this is the advice with regard to them, given
in the _Circular_, without the alteration of even a letter:--
_THE PITCHFORK, PALMERSTON, AND MINERVE
COMMISSION_
We have been able to work the Commission (Pitchfork, Palmerston, and
Minerve), at an unusual liberal price, and we herewith offer for your
acceptance, as per enclosed vouchers, the very advantageous bets about
these absolute morals. Should you accept the whole (which we strongly
recommend), you will please forward stake money by return and retain
vouchers; if only a portion, return same, with stake money, and a
corrected voucher to amount of stake will be at once forwarded to you.
In the remote contingency of your not accepting any portion of either
bet, you will please return vouchers without a moment’s delay, that we
may have an opportunity of offering the bets to other clients.
Those who wish to back Pitchfork, Palmerston, and Minerve for a place,
can be on at one-fourth the odds, but to no greater amount than a £50
stake.
The secret of forcing the voucher, therefore, lay in the fact of
offering far longer prices than could be obtained of any one who
intended to pay when the races were over; for on June 6th, 1872, the day
on which the vouchers were drawn, the market prices, as quoted in the
papers Mr Rawlings advertised in, were 10 to 1 against Palmerston for
the Ascot Stakes; 15 to 1 against Pitchfork for the Royal Hunt Cup; and
10 to 1 against Minerve for the Northumberland Plate. Now as double the
fair price is offered, and as the quoted market represents the odds
which are laid at the chief clubs by the chief men, who can say that the
victims of Rawlings deserve pity? The ability of Rawlings & Co. as
tipsters is strangely shown in this transaction. In their circular,
Pitchfork, Palmerston, and Minerve are their selections for the several
races, even to people who only accepted their advice and did not intrust
them with commissions. They assert that they have positive information
that these horses cannot lose. Under the head of “Royal Hunt Cup,” and
perfectly independent of anything but the private-advice department,
they say, in reference to Pitchfork: “This is a ‘Woodyeates moral,’ and
all must be on. Every now and then this influential coterie throws in
for a fortune, and when they do, the good thing invariably comes off.
We have never missed the winner of this race, and now, with all
confidence, we assure every client that no better opportunity could
possibly occur of landing a rich and substantial stake. Some of our
clients will neglect the opportunities we frequently lay before them;
but on this occasion as the price is so liberal, we do heartily hope
that one and all will go in for a rattling good stake.” Then about
Palmerston for the Ascot Stakes, they tell us that “previous to the
great Epsom event, Palmerston performed such a wonderful feat with the
Brother to Flurry as to show the stable that the Ascot Stakes were
completely at their mercy. Mr Payne and the owners who train at Fyfield
look upon defeat as impossible, and will stand their horses to win a
very large stake. We cannot recollect a more genuine investment, and
must urge all to stand this moral freely.” For the Northumberland Plate
they are, if anything, still more confident, their article on it
containing this: “Another triumph awaits the French contingent in the
Northumberland Plate, as Minerve, own sister to Miss Hervine, is certain
to carry off this event.” Rawlings’s prophecies might have turned out
right if they had had a chance, but he does not seem to have possessed
even a hint as to what would be started for the various stables, for not
one of the three selected ever saw the course on which victory was to be
so easily obtained. What sorry rogues make fortunes nowadays! It is more
than likely that Rawlings, or whatever this trickster’s name was, like
his own selections on this particular occasion, had never seen a
race-course. Strange as this may seem, it is not at all improbable; for
there are lots of men who live by the turf, and who are as conversant
with pedigrees and performances of horses as can be, yet who know
nothing beyond what they see on paper, and who, authorities on racing
when in Fleet Street, would be quite nonplussed if taken to Newmarket
among the horses whose names they know so well.
We trust we have now made plain the two greatest swindles in connection
with the turf, and at the same time shown the unworthiness of even the
pretence to knowledge made by them. But we have no wish that readers,
forgetting the scamps with whom we set out, shall conclude this chapter
with the impression that there are no thieves so bad as sporting
thieves, and so we will fall back on some swindling advertisements of
the general kind, from the general papers, which are not only as
roguish, but as ignorant of the subjects selected as the effusions of
Rawlings himself. Here is one from the _Weekly Times_ of a couple of
years or so back:--
WONDERS OF THE HOROSCOPE.--Any person sending an addressed envelope,
age, height, colour of hair and eyes, together with 13 stamps, will
receive within 24 hours a correct likeness of their future husband or
wife, and date of marriage.--Address, A. WEMYSS, 2, Drake-street, Red
Lion-square, London.
We don’t mind giving Mr Wemyss--what an aristocratic name, by the
way!--a gratuitous advertisement, though we hope that the first customer
he gets through our instrumentality will be the reverse of profitable.
Wemyss can do better still at a better price, as other advertisements
show. He is a milder form of rascal than Methralton, who makes offer as
follows in several of the weekly papers, and who is not content with his
effect on the mind, but actually wishes to interfere with the matter:--
WONDROUS ARTS.--Your future revealed--Seven years, six stamps;
lifetime twelve stamps. State age. Love Charm, sixteen stamps.
Medicine for removing Gravel and Private diseases in a few days,
without injuring the constitution, sixty stamps. Methralton’s Bible
Key, twenty-six stamps. Book of Spirits, 408 pages, thirty-two stamps.
Millennial Prophecies, Gratis. METHRALTON, the Seer, Daventry.
Another kind of scoundrel, whose victims are like those of the
home-employment robbers, mostly poor helpless girls, and whose villany
is far greater than that of the discreet Walter or the forcible
Rawlings, is the fellow who advertises constantly for actors and
actresses, who may be perfectly inexperienced, but who are to get
salaried engagements through his influence. His form varies, but this is
one of his concoctions, and is from the _Daily Telegraph_:--
THE STAGE.--WANTED, TWELVE LADIES and GENTLEMEN (ages 16 to 40) for
salaried engagements. Totally inexperienced persons may
apply.--Communicate, by letter only, enclosing photograph and thirteen
stamps, Histrionicus ----.
This is either a swindle on the girls, or else on the members of the
British public who pay their money to see acting. It is rumoured that
now and again women moving in a certain hemisphere give large sums for
the purpose of appearing on the stage. This may be, but we fancy the
managers are quite shrewd enough not to let outsiders like the
advertiser, Histrionicus, interfere in such delicate matters. It might
be as well to ask why the “promotion in absentiâ” dodges are still
allowed to parade themselves in the leading papers, or in fact why
people should be permitted to take upon themselves titles they have no
right to. Possibly the matter is thought too ridiculous to call for
interference, but there are other qualities besides those of ridicule
and contempt to be found in connection with the following, which is an
advertisement having no particularly distinctive features, and therefore
will represent the thousands of the same order that appear during the
year, and for payment of which a considerable number of spurious degrees
must be manufactured:--
PROMOTION IN ABSENTIÂ.--Qualified surgeons, chemists, dentists,
oculists, chiropodists, and professors of music or arts aspiring to a
doctor’s degree, may communicate by letter to Professor ----.
Qualified, forsooth! why, any one who liked to pay could obtain the most
honourable degree for the biggest idiot in Earlswood Asylum. One of the
chief difficulties to be encountered over such a bad business as this is
that the good and the sham degree holders very often get irretrievably
mixed up in certain phases of society. Physicians, surgeons, and
gentlemen in similar position are protected, and so little dealing is
done in medical, surgical, or chemical degrees; but bachelors and
masters of arts and doctors of laws are made by the score, the
recipients of honours being in a majority of cases men whose ignorance
must be probed before it is appreciated, but whose depth requires no
delving whatever. Now, when a man of this kind elects to call himself
doctor, or puts B.A. or M.A. after his name, even those who know what
little right he has to the degree are hardly quixotic enough to decline
giving him the title he covets; so in a year or so, Dr Brown or Dr Jones
has as firm a hold upon his title as if he had obtained it by a personal
examination under the most rigorous system; and strangers who are unable
to discover for themselves the unworthiness of the pretender, give him
all the honours which belong to the learned. Sometimes the applicant
swindles the professor, and we not long back heard of an aspiring youth
who paid for the degrees of M.A. and LL.D. with a cheque and a bill,
each being for £20, and both being dishonoured. It is a pity that these
two scamps cannot be treated to three months in the House of Correction,
just to encourage all other professors and practisers of small and
paltry swindles.
There is yet another kind of rogue for whom we have room, who addresses
his victims by means of advertisements. This is the sorrowful Christian,
who makes the profession of religion his stock-in-trade, and finds it
profitable. Under the guise of sanctity there is hardly anything at
which he will stick--he is the foulest and nastiest of all the foul and
nasty birds who have supplied material for this chapter. He is as great
an impostor in his pretences as any of the other swindlers are in
theirs, and so it would be just as fair to blame religion for the
existence of the sanctimonious scoundrel, or commerce for the
home-employment agent, as it is to blame racing for the welcher and the
forcer. Here is a sample of the whining and despicable hound, compared
with whom, to our taste, the ordinary pickpocket is a gentleman:--
TO THE LORD’S PEOPLE.--A dear Christian tradesman, who about four
months ago drew from the Savings’ Bank £60, his all therein, to give
to a fellow Christian who urgently required that sum, “thus lending
and hoping for nothing again” but from a bountiful “God whose name is
Love,” is now in WANT OF FORTY POUNDS to pay all demands upon him, ere
he accepts a call to the ministry of the Everlasting Gospel, which he
believes his Heavenly Father is about to make known unto him. A lady,
his friend in Christ the Lord as revealed, in the power of God the
Holy Ghost, thus ventures in simple faith to try the door of
Providence in his behalf; and would leave the issue in the hands of
Him who has heart, hand, breath and purse of men at sovereign command.
The smallest help will be gratefully acknowledged by the Advertiser.
Address to ----.
If this is not blasphemy, what is it? Imagine the greasy smirk of
satisfaction with which the coin of the faithful was received and
divided between the dear Christian tradesman and his lady friend. There
is something suspiciously jocular about the wind-up of the application;
but then, as an old proverb informs us, people who are doing well can
afford the luxury of laughter. Another plan of the religious rascal is
to answer applications for loans, and under the guise of philanthropy
and Christianity to offer the required accommodation. By this means, and
by the exhibition of certain forms, he obtains a deposit from the
unfortunate would-be borrower, and decamps. This is, however, but a
means of relaxation, and is simply indulged in at intervals, just to
keep the hand in while more important business is in course of
projection. The loan-office advertisements may to a certain extent be
regarded as swindles, especially when they promise money without
security. Depend upon it, no professional money-lender is likely to let
out his cash without security any more than without interest. Still
loan-office advertisers are not swindlers absolutely, as they do lend
money and to some extent perform their contracts. The papers at the
present time swarm with their advertisements, and the curious reader may
inspect them as they appear, as for obvious reasons we must decline
making a selection, which might be the reverse of judicious, more
especially as the notices do not come strictly within our limits. Now
and again temporary offices are started, generally in poor
neighbourhoods, for the purpose of bagging the inquiry fees, and with no
intention whatever of lending money. Their general ultimatum is,
“Security offered insufficient;” and a good story is told of a gentleman
who from motives of curiosity applied for a loan of £5, and gave as
guarantors two of the most notoriously wealthy bankers of the City. In
due course he received the usual notification, that the security offered
was not sufficiently “responsible,” and that the accommodation could not
therefore be afforded.
This brings us to the end of our list of swindlers and thieves; and if
we have succeeded in our endeavour to show that the advertising rogue
belongs to no particular class or profession, and that it is idle to
assume that any rank or class is answerable for him, we shall be well
satisfied. To our mind, and we have studied the subject rather closely,
the advertising swindler is a swindler _per se_, and attaches himself to
anything which offers a return, without caring what its title so long as
it has claims to attention. It would be a great pity, therefore, to
assume that these men have anything to do with the respectable forms of
the professions--from sporting to religion--they from time to time
adopt, and a great blunder to blame any body of respectable men because
a lot of rogues choose to assume their business. As long as there are
advertising swindlers, some profession or other must have the discredit
of them.
There are, however, still advertisement swindles of a totally different
description from any that have been here mentioned or referred to. There
is the swindle of the newspaper proprietor who guarantees a circulation
which has no existence, and who, when he takes the money of those who
insert notices in his journal, knows that he is committing a deliberate
and barefaced robbery. There are in London, at the present time, papers
that have absolutely no circulation, in the proper sense of the word,
whatever; and of which only a sufficient number of copies is printed to
supply those who advertise in them, according to the custom observed in
many offices. The readers, therefore, pay a rather heavy premium for the
privilege of perusing each other’s announcements. It may seem that this
state of affairs cannot possibly continue long; but whatever theorists
may make of it, we can speak with confidence of more than six papers
which to our knowledge have possessed no buyers whatever for more than
six years, yet their proprietors get good livings out of them--better,
perhaps, than they would if sale and not swindle was the reason of their
being--and calculate on continuing this state of things for their time
at all events. After them the deluge may come as soon as it likes. We
remember quite well an office in which six of these newspapers were
printed--that is, supposed to be printed, for with the exception of an
alteration of title and a rearrangement of columns, and with, very
rarely, the substitution of a new leading article for an old one, these
six newspapers were all one and the same to the printers. Now, of
course, had there been any chance of one man buying two copies of this
instrument of robbery under any two of its distinct names, the swindle
would have run some risk of being exposed; but so far as we could
discover, there was no desire ever shown to buy even one, the
circulation being exclusively among the advertisers. A very small
circulation which finds its way in any particular direction may often be
far more useful to one who wishes his notice to travel that way than
would the largest circulation in the world; but the intensest of
optimists could hardly discern any likelihood of benefit in the system
just noticed.
Still another kind of advertisement swindle--still more distinct from
the general run of swindles--is that by which certain ambitious persons
try to obtain a spurious notoriety. Their desire is in no way connected
with trade, though as it has in its effect the passing off of inferior
wares upon the public as though they were of first-class quality, the
word swindle very properly applies to their little trickery. These men
pine for recognition in the public prints, and so long as their names
are mentioned, no matter how, they regard the task of achieving a cheap
immortality as progressing towards completion. Literature and the
various phases of art suffer most from these impostors, who very often
not only attain notoriety by means of the specious puffery they
exercise, but by it obtain money as well. No one can be blind to the
manner in which some very small literary lights manage to keep their
names continually paraded before the public; and the puffs are so worded
that the unthinking are bound to believe that these rushlight writers
are the souls of the literature and journalism of the present day. Said
the publisher of a magazine, who is not renowned for either taste or
education, when it was proposed that a really eminent man should write
him an article, “No; I dessay he’s very good, but I want men with names.
I can get Montague Smith and Chumley Jones and Montmorency Thomson, all
famous, and all glad to write for two pound a sheet--why, I never heard
of your man, and yet he wants ten times as much. I never see his name in
the papers.” This was the publisher who is said to have refused to pay
for the refrain of a set of verses except where it first occurred, and
demanded that the rest should be measured off and deducted from the
price originally agreed upon. So not only in the case of the publisher,
but in that of the public do these small potatoes, who have a knack of
glossing over their mean surnames with high-sounding prefixes, render
themselves representatives of an institution the real leaders in which
are often quite unknown out of their own circles. For every thousand
familiar with the name of Shakespeare Green, the writer of “awfuls,”
there is not one who can tell you who are the editors of the leading
daily papers and principal reviews. The anonymity of journalism has its
advantages, and very likely the directors of public opinion are content
to remain behind its curtain; but it is through this same anonymous
arrangement that the smallest of small fry measured on their merits are
enabled to parade themselves as they do. There are, we know, many
deservedly well and widely known writers for newspapers and serials who
are really what they profess to be, and who depend upon nothing so much
as merit, for success; but even they must admit the truth of what we
have said, and must often feel very like the apples did as they went
down stream in the fable.
It might be as well here to say a few words about the advertisement
swindles that are perpetrated by means of photographs. It has long been
a crying evil that at certain theatres shameless women who wear many
diamonds and few clothes are allowed to appear upon the stage and play
at acting. Much training enables them now and again to deliver
half-a-dozen lines without displaying their ignorance and peculiarity of
aspiration too glaringly; but they cannot be depended on to do even this
much with certainty. Sometimes they sing in the smallest of small
voices, and a few of them have mastered the breakdown and the _can-can_;
but their chief attraction consists, to the audience, in their lavish
display of limbs and “neck,” and, to the manager, in their requiring but
nominal salaries. One would have thought it sufficient that such
creatures should exhibit themselves to the people who choose to go and
see them; but it is not so, they get themselves photographed in the most
extraordinary attitudes, and their counterfeit presentments leer out
from the shop windows upon passers-by in much the same manner as in the
flesh--sometimes in very much of it--they leer at their friends in the
stalls and boxes. Now and again we see the portrait of one real and
justly-celebrated actress surrounded by these demireps, but of late what
are known as actresses’ portraits consist mainly of those to whom the
title is convenient, or of those who combine a little of the actress
with a great deal of the courtesan. Those artists whose portraits should
grace the photographers’ show-cases hardly care to run the risk of being
mixed up in the questionable society they see there; and we can vouch
for the fact that in a leading thoroughfare, of twenty-five English
portraits exhibited in a window as those of actresses, at which we were
looking but recently, there were not five that were really what they
pretended to be.
Of hoaxes which come within our scope a very noticeable one took place
in August 1815. A short time previous to the departure of the French
Emperor from our coast on his last journey, to St Helena, a
respectably-dressed man caused a quantity of handbills to be distributed
through Chester, in which he informed the public that a great number of
genteel families had embarked at Plymouth, and would certainly proceed
with the British regiment appointed to accompany the ex-Emperor to St
Helena: he added further, that the island being dreadfully infested with
rats, his Majesty’s ministers had determined that it should be forthwith
effectually cleared of those noxious animals. To facilitate this
important purpose, he had been deputed to purchase as many cats and
thriving kittens as could possibly be procured for money, in a short
space of time; and therefore he publicly offered in his handbills
“sixteen shillings for every _athletic full-grown tom-cat_, ten
shillings for every _adult female puss_, and half-a-crown for every
thriving _vigorous kitten_ that could _swill_ milk, pursue a ball of
thread, or fasten its young fangs in a dying mouse.” On the evening of
the third day after this advertisement had been distributed, the people
of Chester were astonished by an irruption of a multitude of old women,
boys, and girls into their streets, each of whom carried on his or her
shoulders either a bag or a basket, which appeared to contain some
restless animal. Every road, every lane, was thronged with this comical
procession; and before night a congregation of nearly three thousand
cats was collected in Chester. The happy bearers of these sweet-voiced
creatures proceeded (as directed by the advertisement) towards one
street with their delectable burdens. Here they became closely wedged
together. A vocal concert soon ensued. The women screamed; the cats
squalled; the boys and girls shrieked aloud, and the dogs of the street
howled to match, so that it soon became difficult for the nicest ear to
ascertain whether the canine, the feline, or the human tones were
predominant. Some of the cat-bearing ladies, whose dispositions were not
of the most placid nature, finding themselves annoyed by their
neighbours, soon cast down their burdens and began to box. A battle
royal ensued. The cats sounded the war-whoop with might and main.
Meanwhile the boys of the town, who seemed mightily to relish the sport,
were actively employed in opening the mouths of the deserted sacks, and
liberating the cats from their forlorn situations. The enraged animals
bounded immediately on the shoulders and heads of the combatants, and
ran spitting, squalling, and clawing along the undulating sea of skulls,
towards the walls of the houses of the good people of Chester. The
citizens, attracted by the noise, had opened the windows to gaze at the
fun. The cats, rushing with the rapidity of lightning up the pillars,
and then across the balustrades and galleries, for which the town is so
famous, leaped slap-dash through the open windows into the apartments.
Never, since the days of the celebrated Hugh Lupus, were the
drawing-rooms of Chester filled with such a crowd of unwelcome guests.
Now were heard the crashes of broken china; the howling of affrighted
dogs; the cries of distressed damsels, and the groans of well-fed
citizens. All Chester was soon in arms; and dire were the deeds of
vengeance executed on the feline race. Next morning above five hundred
dead bodies were seen floating on the river Dee, where they had been
ignominiously thrown by the two-legged victors. The rest of the invading
host having evacuated the town, dispersed in the utmost confusion to
their respective homes.
In 1826 the following handbill was circulated in Norwich and its
neighbourhood for some days previous to the date mentioned in it, and
caused great excitement:--
_St James’s Hill, back of the Horse Barracks._
The Public are respectfully informed that Signor CARLO GRAM VILLECROP,
the celebrated Swiss Mountain Flyer, from Geneva and Mont Blanc, is
just arrived in this City, and will exhibit with a Tyrolese Pole,
fifty feet long, his most astonishing Gymnastic Flights, never before
witnessed in this country. Signor Villecrop has had the great honour
of exhibiting his most extraordinary Feats on the Continent before the
King of Prussia, Emperor of Austria, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and
all the resident Nobility in Switzerland. He begs to inform the Ladies
and Gentlemen of this City that he has selected St James’s Hill and
the adjoining hills for his performances, and will first display his
remarkable strength in running up the hill with his Tyrolese Pole
between his teeth. He will next lay on his back, and balance the same
Pole on his nose, chin, and different parts of his body. He will climb
upon it with the astonishing swiftness of a cat, and stand on his head
at the top; on a sudden he will leap three feet from the Pole without
falling, suspending himself by a shenese cord only. He will also walk
on his head up and down the hill, balancing the Pole on one foot. Many
other feats will be exhibited, in which Signor Villecrop will display
to the audience the much-admired art of toppling, peculiar only to the
Peasantry of Switzerland. He will conclude his performance by repeated
flights in the air, up and down the hill, with a velocity almost
imperceptible, assisted only by his Pole, with which he will
frequently jump the astonishing distance of Forty and Fifty Yards at a
time. Signor Villecrop begs to assure the ladies and gentlemen who
honour him with their company that no money will be collected till
after the exhibition, feeling convinced that his exertions will be
liberally rewarded by their generosity. The Exhibition to commence on
Monday, the 28th of August 1826, precisely at half-past five o’clock
in the evening.
On the evening of the 28th August there were more than twenty thousand
people assembled at the foot of the hill, on foot, on horseback, and in
every kind of conveyance. Of course Signor Carlo Gram Villecrop did not
put in an appearance, for that best of all the reasons that could be
given--his having no existence out of the minds of the perpetrators of
the swindle.
* * * * *
We had intended to introduce as a congenial subject the great
bottle-trick hoax, but as we have already run to such length, and as
this famous piece of humbug will stand well alone, we give it a chapter
to itself.
[36] Book of Days.