"The ingenuity and industry expended on what is called 'tipping' in
connection with horse-racing ought to bring good fortune in no halting
measure to the professors of the art, who appear to spend their lives
in trying to enrich everybody but themselves."
So wrote, some four or five years ago, an essayist in the pages of one
of the "superior" magazines.
That the business of tipping goes on as briskly as ever, the experts in
that line of turf illusion being still busily occupied in benevolent
endeavours to confer benefit on their fellow-men, can be ascertained by
all who will take the trouble to glance over the advertising columns of
the numerous sporting journals of the time.
A point worthy of notice in connection with these announcements is
the style now adopted in fashioning them. New and improved methods of
communicating with the public are constantly being devised. Tipping
nowadays is a "business" of importance requiring large dealings with
the telegraph; but long ago--say about the close of the "thirties,"
and in the "forties" of the present century, when the writer became
interested in horse-racing, consequent on having won a few sovereigns
by the victory of Merry Monarch in the Derby--tipping was much less
obtrusive than it is to-day, and was carried on chiefly by means
of what may be called "disguises." Such announcements as were made
public usually bore that the advertiser was in exclusive possession
of information about a horse which was certain to win the Derby or
some other important race; but, as a rule, the great event decided at
Epsom was, in the beginning of tipping, the race most favoured, and the
person advertising not seldom posed as "a gentleman's valet out of a
place," or as "a stableman dying of consumption," or "an old military
man," or as some person very remote from the being he really was.
"Who, then," it will be asked, "were those persons?" Well, as there
were not so many of them as there are to-day, when "tipping," as was
said a few months ago to a magistrate, is a "profession," it will not
prove a difficult task to give information about their ways of working,
as I happen to be able to speak with some degree of knowledge of two
or three of the number who were among the first to advertise in days
when the mediums for such announcements were anything but numerous,
and advertising was somewhat costly, there being then an advertisement
duty of one shilling and sixpence exigible on each announcement, whilst
postage was also expensive.
In the beginning of race tipping the Queen's head had not been
invented. The outside prophets had at first only a local audience, but
even during the "thirties" London was occupied by a vast population,
and there was always a sufficient percentage of its inhabitants so
interested in racing as to find employment for half-a-dozen tipsters,
in addition to those engaged on such newspapers of the time as kept
prophets, some of whom were "verse-jinglers" of no mean capacity,
as a selection from their poetic prognostications would prove, were
a collection of the best of them to be made and published with the
necessary notes of explanation.
The first of the prophets to whom I will refer were a man and a woman,
both persons of ability, able to assume a variety of characters, and
by doing so carry on their little game industriously from season to
season. There was no collusion between them, however; they were in no
way connected.
The man, before he began work as a tipster, had been for several years
under butler in one of the big Pall Mall clubs, and having drawn the
winner of the Chester Cup in a plethoric "sweep"--many of which used
to be, and I believe still are, organised in London in connection with
the more important races--he found himself in possession of sufficient
funds, including the money he had saved in service, to become lessee of
a public-house in a little street off Fetter Lane, in which for a time
he did well, so well that he took courage and married, his wife being
able to assist him in his business.
It is almost needless to say, with a landlord possessed of a taste for
the turf, his house came in time to be much frequented by the smaller
fry of sporting men having tastes in common and being fond of betting,
although the sums risked seldom exceeded half-a-crown, or at most
double that amount.
One evil day a constant frequenter of the house introduced a friend
of his, who was anxious to start a betting list, and as Wingrave, the
landlord, thought a list in the house would improve his business, he
gave consent, and Bill Holmes commenced business at the "Caxton Arms."
For a period of a little over twelve months all went well, customers
increased, money was made, and claims punctually met.
At length there came a frowning of Fortune. The list-keeper was himself
a keen bettor, and more than once "perilled his purse" by having all
his money on an animal he thought "sure to win." Having backed a horse
on his own account to win a particular Chester Cup--in those days the
"Tradesmen's Plate" was a most pronounced betting race--and the animal
having failed to do what was expected. Holmes was unfortunately unable
to come to "the scratch" over the animal which did win, and knowing he
could not meet the claims which would be made against him on behalf
of the winner, which had been heavily backed at his list, he at once
left London, to the great consternation of Wingrave, who dreaded he
would in some way be held responsible for the misdeeds of the runaway
list-keeper. His foreboding was more than realised; an incensed mob of
the creditors of Holmes, taking the law into their own hands, all but
wrecked the house. It was in vain the landlord told the crowd he had no
concern with the defalcations of the list-keeper; the people would not
be pacified. Out of the affair there arose a police case, and although
Wingrave was able to convince the magistrate that he had himself been a
victim, and had been more sinned against than sinning, he was deprived
of his license at the first opportunity, and was unable to obtain
possession of another house. Luckily, although two days' drawings had
been confiscated by the enraged punters, the ill-used landlord, after
paying all claims, had still a few pounds at his banker's, when he was
compelled to shut shop.
Nothing in the public-house line of business being likely to turn
up, Wingrave, by the advice of his shrewd wife (her father had been
a pugilist, and afterwards lessee of a gin-shop in the region of
Lambeth), turned tipster, and under the designation of "a retired club
steward," offered to give all who pleased to forward half-a-crown
to his house in Pemberton Row the name of a horse which would win
the Derby; or to those who entrusted him with double that amount, he
promised, in addition, to give the name of a filly that would be first
in the Oaks, and so ensure a remunerative double event. His Derby
prophecy proved a true one, the horse he gave being Voltigeur. The
filly prophesied for the Oaks, however, only attained the rather barren
honour of a place; still, the tip was considered a good one, fair odds
being attainable, which led to much business being done in respect of
the next two or three tips. Voltigeurs, however, do not run and win
every day, and in time Wingrave came to know by the falling off which
took place in the remittances that he would require to make a new
departure, which he at once did.
His next move was made in the disguise of "Henry Buckstone, late
valet to a sporting nobleman, who, being in possession of several
important racing secrets, will send the winners of Two Thousand
Guineas and Chester Cup to a select number of gentlemen on receiving
a remittance of five shillings." Communications were to be addressed
to a stationer's shop in Holborn, and for a time letters came in
abundance, as many on some days as fifteen. Once again, as may be said,
the ex-publican "struck ile," and a flow of fortune resulted which,
happily for Wingrave, was kept up by the consecutive selection of some
six or eight good winners. But in time this tipster, like others before
and after him, dropped out of notice, although it is certain that he
flourished, like the proverbial green bay-tree, for several years.
During the period which Wingrave carried on business, tipsters had much
in their favour, the big events of the season being betted upon for
months before the day set for their decision.
Fifty years ago, for instance, quotations on the Chester Cup were
numerous in the December of the year previous to its being run. Such
arrangements, of course, helped the tipsters of the outer school, as
people were early in the field to back their fancies or the selections
of the adventurers who sent prophecies. For these men the fact of
being occasionally successful in naming the winner of a great race,
at what was thought a "long price," was just so much capital gained.
Two or three successful tips enabled a man to play "the game" to a
remunerative tune for at east six months; every time he advertised he
obtained numerous replies on the strength of his previous successes.
Before the advent of the "retired club steward" there was a person at
work whose success as a tipster was the subject of much gossip among
needy bettors; this was the lady tipster already referred to. Yes, a
veritable woman, and clever at the work! I first heard about her in
"Jessop's," a night house in Catherine Street, among the frequenters
of which her tips seemed to have made an impression. The little
badly-printed circular containing her prophecies was signed "A. M.
Weather." The name of this female foreteller of turf events was said
to be Adelaide Merryweather; she was, so I was told by some of the
"knowing ones" who frequented "Jessop's," the widow of an actor who
had been engaged for a time in one of the then transpontine theatres
as a delineator of small parts. The woman's own name was Weather, her
husband's name being Merry, and the _nom de plume_ she adopted as a
prophetess was a combination of the two; but she traded in tips under
other names as well, one of them being John Screwman. Her house, or at
least one of the places to which her letters were sent, was in Chapel
Street, Soho Square, and, as the postman of the period would have been
able to testify, she carried on a thriving business.
Another of the names assumed by Mrs. Merryweather when she put on
her prophetic mantle was, if my memory is not proving treacherous,
"Arthur Lancefield, late of Middleham." I am writing only what I know,
or what I believe from trustworthy information to be true, and my
belief is that Mrs. Merryweather was, if not the "inventor" of the
method of sending the names of different horses to different batches
of applicants, one of the earliest tipsters to adopt and systematise
the plan. Trading as she did under three or four _noms de plume_, she
speedily accumulated a long list of names of persons who backed horses;
so that when she adopted another name and changed her address, she
could send circulars to former customers stating that, from private
information which she had received, she believed Mr. Brown Jones (or
any other person) was anxious to find out the winner of the Derby
(or whatever race might be on the tapis), and that, on receiving
half-a-crown, a rare double event would be forwarded to his address.
One of this woman's most successful hits was reported to have been made
in the character of an invalid jockey's wife, her circular on that
occasion being worded as follows: "A jockey's wife, her husband being
unable to ride now in consequence of having sustained a paralytic shock
of the lower limbs, does not ask for charity; but being anxious for the
sake of her young children to earn a living, will be glad to hear from
gentlemen who take an interest in racing. Her husband, having been a
noted trial-rider, knows well the form of all the horses now running.
Address, Sarah Chiffman, 94A, Great Pulteney Street, Golden Square."
This advertisement, I was told, was looked upon as being genuine, and
also that half-sovereigns, to cover letters from the date of its issue
to the day of the Cambridgeshire, were liberally contributed to the
wife of the unfortunate horseman; many people connected with racing
affairs fancied by subscribing that they would obtain "something good,"
whilst the fact of three winners of three races, and a second and third
in two more being given to start with, was thought sufficient evidence
of the _bona fides_ of the advertiser.
For three or four years Mrs. Merryweather experienced a prosperous
time, customers being numerous, as, by means of her system of sending
different horses to different persons one or more batches of them were
certain to have had winners sent to them, and these fortunate ones
were not slow to sound the trumpet of her fame among their friends, so
that on some occasions she enjoyed a run of success. How her career
ended I cannot say from personal knowledge. Fred Booth, a frequent
visitor to "Jessop's," and afterwards a bookmaker in a considerable
way of business, used to relate that she married one of her clients, a
wholesale grain merchant in the North of England, who had found his way
to her house intent on giving the prophet a very handsome present in
return for a double event which she had been lucky enough to send him.
The gentleman was greatly surprised on discovering that his tipster
was a woman, and a good-looking one, possessed of refined manners; and
according to Booth, who spoke as if he knew the gentleman, the story
came to a conclusion in the neighbouring church in the most orthodox
fashion.
I can from personal knowledge describe the doings of one of the tipping
fraternity. About the year 1842 or 1843 (I am not sure which of these
years it was), I went one evening to Sadler's Wells Theatre to witness
the play of _King John_, and after the tragedy I supped with one of the
actors in his lodgings in Arlington Street, near the theatre. We were
joined at table by a fellow-lodger of my friend, who seemed to know
nothing but what savoured of the turf, and he was so complaisant as to
tell me the names of several horses which were pretty certain to win,
and, as I know, did win some of the coming events. Being invited, we
shared a bottle of capital claret along with him in his "den," as he
called his parlour, in which I noted, scattered about, some dozens of
newspapers and especially several copies of _Bell's Life_.
When opportunity offered I asked my friend who his fellow-lodger was.
"Well," he replied, "he is, or rather has been, on the press, having
some three or four years ago been connected with one or other of the
minor weekly publications; but he is now, he tells me, playing a far
more profitable part; he has become a racing tipster and makes a good
income at that business. His plan is to select about ten or a dozen
of the most likely horses and send a different one to win the race
and another, or perhaps two others, to get places, to each of his
customers, taking care, of course, to keep a record of what he does,
and the names and addresses of those who correspond with him.
"Two or three years ago he made quite a hit with a horse called Little
Wonder, which, as I dare say you know, won a Derby. That event, my dear
boy, set him on his legs; the landlord of the big gin-palace not far
from here, who won a good round sum by means of his tip, gave him a
present of fifty pounds, and judging from his correspondence and the
many persons who evidently call to consult him he must be making money,
but whether or not he may be taking care of it is another matter. I
suspect, however, it is with him as it often is with others similarly
circumstanced, a case of 'lightly come, lightly go.'"
This plan, often since adopted, of sending different horses for wins
and places to the different applicants for tips, was in my opinion
quite a stroke of genius; the "fine art" of tipping indeed.
Such reminiscences might be multiplied. I was at one time brought
into contact with several adventurers of similar kidney to those
described, and there are no doubt aged turfites who could supplement
what I have said. Previous even to the period I have been attempting
to illustrate there was being published a regular racing circular, the
precursor of the _Lockets, Judexes, and Walmsleys_ of a later period,
whilst newspaper tipping, especially in the columns of certain of the
London weekly newspapers, was greatly extended; in not a few of them a
"real poet" gushed forth his prophetic lore, and, as has been stated
already, not a few of the poetic predictions perpetrated some fifty
years ago were exceedingly felicitous in their diction, considering
the sometimes very uncouth matter that had of necessity to be dealt
with. I remember reading upon one occasion a collection of such poems
in a Bow Street tavern (it was kept, I think, by Baron Nicholson), and
of being struck with the halting lines and bald phraseology of three
or four of the Seven Dials sort, that used at one time to be hawked
round the public-houses at which sporting men were wont to congregate.
One sample of the doggerel--I am not speaking now of the graceful
contributions published by _Bell's Life_ or _The Sunday Times_, but of
the Cattnach kind, written for recital in public-houses, one of which I
well remember--proved a fortunate tip, as it wound up with an excellent
prophecy:
All who desire to quench their very great thirst
Must back my bright fancy, brave Pyrrhus the First.
Another of the kind, after dealing with all the animals likely to start
for the race (more than a dozen), pronounced boldly in favour of the
horse that won, winding up his narrative with the following rather
clumsy lines:
Now this fair chance is given, play you your cards right well,
Take my advice--down with your dibs on the bold Dayrell.
I am quoting these lines from memory, and another concluding couplet
dwells in my remembrance:
Coldrenick! Coldrenick! the crowd loudly cry,
But Attila's the animal that wins, in my eye.
afterwards altered by "the poet" to:
Coldrenick! Coldrenick! the crowd loudly shout,
But to-day I set down as Attila's day out.
In respect of the art of really "poetical" tipping, there are few who
know how very difficult it is to render the matter presentable; the
names to be introduced are sometimes not amenable to the treatment
of the poet, no matter how heartily he enters on his task. As one
gentleman said to the writer, "to work all these probable starters into
readable rhymes, far less to clothe them with some degree of poetic
fancy, would need a couple of Tennysons, four Brownings, and half a
score each of Swinburnes and Buchanans rolled into one, and even then
the product of the lot united might not seem to the editor all it ought
to be."
Nowadays every newspaper of importance has to furnish a daily modicum
of sporting intelligence, which proprietors find to be a costly item in
the ever increasing sum of their expenditure. But it is a circumstance
that cannot be helped; there is in reality more interest taken in the
handicaps for the Cesarewitch and Cambridgeshire by five-sixths of
the readers of the daily papers than there is in all the other items
of news added together; indeed, it is not going too far to affirm
that two or three of the daily newspapers are indebted for the larger
portion of their sales to the fact of their giving every morning a
detailed programme for the races of the day, as well as other sporting
intelligence. Excellent information of its kind is purveyed by the
members of the sporting press, who contribute to these journals; but
the tips given are, except to the merest novices, of little use, as
veteran bettors can, by the aid of their _Ruff_ or _McCall_, select
horses for themselves.
In addition to the racing news contained in the ordinary run of
newspapers, there are three daily journals published all the year round
which are solely devoted to sporting news, and these papers deal of
course in "tips," and some of them afford a place in their columns to
a full score of the daily increasing army of vaticinators; and yet,
as must be patent to those who devote time and attention to the study
of such matters, no betting man could possibly make a fortune, or
even earn a living, by abjectly following either or all of the honest
newspaper tipsters referred to.
It is amusing to note how some of the more "screeching" of the
newspapers comport themselves. When one of them, for instance, after
a period of six or seven weeks, becomes some day so fortunate as to
select three or four horses that win as many races, it shouts out
next day in loud tones so that all may have news of its prescience--a
supremely Irish mode of telling readers that to follow its tips would
be ruinous. One day's luck out of twenty or thirty simply means to
backers "fell despair," and much of it. There is (or was lately) a
tipster who is never done sounding his own praises; "as I predicted,
_Chance_ did the trick easily," "my selection _Accident_ in a
walk," "I gave two for such and such a race, and my first selection
_Happy-go-lucky_ literally romped in."
But what of that, when backers of the two lost their money, the romping
in horse starting at odds of 3 to 1 on him! Let us suppose that some
sanguine speculator had risked a five-pound note on each selection
(because when two horses are selected it is necessary to back both in
case of missing the winner), the result would have been a loss of £5 on
No. 2 and a gain of £1 13_s._ on No. 1, showing a balance to the bad
of £3 7_s._ But, notwithstanding, the tipster in question crowed over
this feat of tipping, just as a bantam cock does when he is surveying
the half-dozen inmates of his harem.
These details will not probably be pleasant to the gentlemen of the
sporting press; but there are among them several who have no occasion
to assume that my remarks are personal, because they are persons
possessed of knowledge, who announce their selections in a modest
manner, and give good reasons for their faith; but for the kind of
tipster who told his readers not only that Pioneer would win the
race for the City and Suburban Handicap, but would do easily, I have
but scanty respect. That tipster must surely be a green hand at the
business! Why did he not add that if the horse did not win easily
he would eat him? "Will win," instead of "may win," is a mistake in
tipping often committed by some even of the veteran press tipsters.
Pressmen who review past races and prophesy on future events are
compelled, like jockeys, "to ride to order"; in plain language, they
must found their tips on the public form of the horses commented upon.
It is not any part of their work to "guess" that any particular horse
will win a race; hence it is that the professional prophets are now and
again completely "floored" by the victory of an animal they dared not
even assume to have been possessed of a chance. It is always on the
cards that an outsider may win.
There are every day busily at work at the present time an army of over
two hundred and fifty advertising tipsters--pure adventurers, recruited
from all sorts and conditions of men. The writer took pains, three or
four years ago, to ascertain, by personally interviewing a number of
them, what manner of men they were. His idea of the kind of persons
he had supposed them to be was at once corroborated, as the first of
them with whom he could obtain an interview he immediately recognised
as a bookmaker who had welshed him at Ascot two years before; another
of the fraternity was identified by a friend as a "swell cabman," who
used to have a lucrative connection in the City, his customers being
chiefly stockbrokers and bankers' clerks; but more surprising than
either of these was the discovery that among the motley crowd, and
evidently, from the fact of two clerks in an outer office being busily
engaged in filling up telegraphic forms, doing a roaring trade, there
was a younger son of a very well known and wealthy London citizen, who,
having failed at the University, and "gone to the bad" in business, had
taken to tipping.
Well do I remember reading one morning in _The Standard_ that Bill
Jones, one of "the ruins" bookmakers, had been sent for ten days to
prison as a rogue and vagabond for betting, the alderman who passed the
sentence being the uncle of the tipster to whom I have been alluding!
Could a census be taken of these prophets, embracing their antecedents,
it would be found that not a few of them were persons who had lost
money in backing horses or in laying the odds against their chances,
reminding us of the celebrated definition of the critics being "men who
have failed in literature and art."
As has been remarked in the course of the foregoing observations, the
art of tipping is now a business over which no disguise is thrown,
although an occasional advertisement still crops up in the old style.
One or two of the present-day tipsters correspond with "gentlemen
only," but on being communicated with, these persons do not seem
particularly anxious to restrict the number of their clients; what they
really want is "a remittance." At the present time there are tipsters
who carry on business in different fashions; some ask for a fee that
will cover a week's work, others seek an all-day remittance, whilst not
a few deal in single-horse wires or "paddock snips," as they designate
their information. There are also tipsters who ask only to be paid by
results. "Put one shilling on each of the horses I select for you to
back, and if one wins, remit me the odds obtained," indicates the mode
of doing business adopted by such prophets.
As a matter of course, the tipsters of the time are ever varying
their names and addresses. When they make a series of hits under one
designation they trade on that as long as they can, but when business
begins to decrease because their tips fail to disclose winners, then
a change of locality and another name gives chances of renewed good
fortune. Thus the man who was "A. 1." a month ago is now figuring as
"X. Y. 3.," whose tips, "privately given," made the fortunes of several
gentlemen two years ago, "so that I" (that is "X. Y. 3.") "am induced
to allow the general public to participate in my information." About
the period of the Derby in each year I take stock of the tipsters'
advertisements, and have found, as a general rule, that only about
thirty per cent. of those who advertised in the previous year remain
in the field--the others having either retired or changed their names
and addresses.
The class of tipsters of whom I have been writing earn a great deal of
money, but many of them spend it recklessly, never thinking that they
may be overtaken by the proverbial rainy day. Judging from the vast
number of telegrams which are despatched on busy race-days, two or
three thousand pounds a week must reach these tipsters, the majority
of whom make it a rule, I fancy, to incur no expense for information,
although some among them are always boasting of their staff of
highly-paid assistants. These men take the tips given in the morning
newspapers and retail them to the fools who trust them for a shilling,
or perhaps half-a-crown, whilst the simpletons who purchase the
information could obtain it for one penny, and all the news, political
and social, as well!
Of the fools who are born in every minute of the day and night, a very
great number deal with the advertising tipsters to their ultimate
loss. It is only right, however, to let it be known that there are a
few honourable men among the blacklegs who take much personal trouble
and incur considerable expense in obtaining information of a reliable
kind for those who trust them. But these men fail to make backing pay;
they no doubt experience runs of luck, but even with runs of luck the
balance at the close of the year is sure to be on the wrong side of the
account.
The proprietors of several weekly racing periodicals at present
published, not satisfied seemingly with the sales of fifty or sixty
thousand copies which they say their papers attain, send out daily
tips by telegraph, or pen nightly letters to all who will pay the
requisite fee, and according to their own accounts of what they achieve
their success as tipsters is enormous; but it may be fairly stated on
behalf of the gentlemen who cater sporting news for the daily press,
that considering the difficulties incidental to the formulating of
their prophetic work, they do wonderfully well, although it has been
often stated against them, as a matter of reproach, that they "follow
the money"--in other words, tip those horses which are being or are
likely to be heavily backed.