sense is usually left out of the composition of the betting-man's
victim, and the flood of honest money rolled into the keeping of men who
are certainly no more than indifferent honest. The day of the race came;
the great gaping public dipped their hands in their pockets and accepted
short odds about their precious certainty. When the flag fell for the
start, the most wildly extravagant odds were offered against the
favourite by the men who had been betting against him all along, for
they saw very soon that they were safe. The poor brute on whose success
so many thousands depended could not even gallop; he trailed on wearily
for a little, without showing any sign of his old gallant fire and
speed, and at last his hopeless rider stopped him. This story is in the
mouths of all men; and now perhaps our simpletons maybe surprised to
hear that the wretched animal which was the innocent cause of loss and
misery was poisoned by a narcotic. In his efforts to move freely he
strained himself, for the subtle drug deprived him of the power of using
his limbs, and he could only sprawl and wrench his sinews. This is the
fourth case of the kind which has recently occurred; and now clever
judges have hit upon the cause which has disabled so many good horses,
after the rascals of the Ring have succeeded in laying colossal amounts
against them. Too many people know the dire effects of the morphia
injections which are now so commonly used by weak individuals who fear
pain and _ennui_; the same deadly drug is used to poison the horses. One
touch with the sharp needle-point under the horse's elbow, and the
subtle, numbing poison speeds through the arteries and paralyzes the
nerves; a beautiful creature that comes out full of fire and courage is
converted in a very few minutes into a dull helpless mass that has no
more conscious volition than a machine. The animal remains on its feet,
but exertion is impossible, and neither rein, whip, nor spur serves to
stimulate the cunning poisoner's victim. About the facts there can now
be no dispute: and this last wretched story supplies a copestone to a
pile of similar tales which has been in course of building during the
past three or four years. Enraged men have become outspoken, and things
are now boldly printed and circulated which were mentioned only in
whispers long ago. The days of clumsy poisoning have gone by; the
prowling villain no longer obtains entrance to a stable for the purpose
of battering a horse's leg or driving a nail into the frog of the foot;
the ancient crude devices are used no more, for science has become the
handmaid of scoundrelism. When in 1811 a bad fellow squirted a solution
of arsenic into a locked horse-trough, the evil trick was too clumsy to
escape detection, and the cruel rogue was promptly caught and sent to
the gallows; but we now have horse-poisoners who hold a secret similar
to that which Palmer of Rugeley kept so long. I say "a secret," though
every skilled veterinary surgeon knows how to administer morphia, and
knows its effects; but the new practitioners contrive to send in the
deadly injection of the drug in spite of the ceaseless vigilance of
trainers, stablemen, detectives, and all other guards. Now I ask any
rational man who may have been tempted to bet, Is it worth while? Leave
out the morality for the present, and tell us whether you think it
business-like to risk your money when you know that neither a horse's
speed nor a trainer's skill will avail you when once an acute crew of
sharpers have settled that a race must not be won by a certain animal.
The miserable creature whose case has served me for a text was tried at
home during the second week of April; he carried four stone more than
the very useful and fast horse which ran against him, and he merely
amused himself by romping alongside of his opponent. Again, when he took
a preliminary canter before the drug had time to act, he moved with
great strength and with the freedom of a greyhound; yet within three
minutes he was no more than an inert mass of flesh and bone. I say to
the inexperienced gambler, "Draw your own conclusions, and if, after
studying my words, you choose to tempt fortune any more, your fate--your
evil fate--be on your own head, for nothing that I or any one else can
do will save you."
Not long before the melancholy and sordid case which I have described,
and which is now gaining attention and rousing curiosity everywhere, a
certain splendid steeplechaser was brought out to run for the most
important of cross-country races. He was a famous horse, and, like our
Derby winner, he bore the fortunes of a good many people. To the
confusion and dismay of the men who made sure of his success, he was
found to be stupified, and suffering from all the symptoms of
morphia-poisoning! Not long ago an exquisite mare was brought out to run
for the Liverpool Steeplechase, and, like the two I have already named,
she was deemed to be absolutely certain of success. She came out merrily
from her box; but soon she appeared to become dazed and silly; she
could not move properly, and in trying to clear her first fence she
staggered like a soddened drunkard and fell. The rascals had not become
artistic poisoners at that date, and it was found that the poor mare had
received the drug through a rather large puncture in her nostril.
The men whom I seek to cure are not worthy of much care; but they have
dependants; and it is of the women and children that I think. Here is
another pitfall into which the eager novice stumbles; and once more on
grounds of expediency I ask the novice to consider his position.
According to the decision of the peculiarly-constituted senate which
rules racing affairs, I understand that, even if a horse starts in a
race with health and training all in its favour, it by no means follows
that he will win, or even run well. Cunning touches of the bridle,
dexterous movements of body and limbs on the jockey's part, subtle
checks applied so as to cramp the animal's stride--all these things tend
to bring about surprising results. The horse that fails dismally in one
race comes out soon afterwards and wins easily in more adverse
circumstances. I grow tired of the unlucky catalogue of mean swindles,
and I should be glad if I never heard of the Turf again; though, alas, I
have little hope of that so long as betting-shops are open, and so long
as miserable women have the power to address letters to me! I can only
implore those who are not stricken with the gambler's fever to come away
from danger while yet there is time. A great nobleman like Lord
Hartington or Lord Rodney may amuse himself by keeping racers; he gains
relaxation by running out from London to see his pretty colts and
fillies gallop, and he needs not to care very much whether they win or
lose, for it is only the mild excitement and the change of scene that he
wants. The wealthy people who go to Newmarket seek pleasant company as
much as anything, and the loss of a few hundreds hardly counts in their
year's expenses. But the poor noodle who can hardly afford to pay his
fare and hotel bill--why should he meddle with horses? If an animal is
poisoned, the betting millionaire who backs it swallows his chagrin and
thinks no more of the matter, but the wretched clerk who has risked a
quarter's salary cannot take matters so easily. Racing is the rich man's
diversion, and men of poor or moderate means cannot afford to think
about it. The beautiful world is full of entertainment for those who
search wisely; then why should any man vex heart and brain by meddling
with a pursuit which gives him no pleasure, and which cannot by any
chance bring him profit? I have no pity for a man who ascribes his ruin
to betting, and I contemn those paltry weaklings whose cases I study and
collect from the newspapers. Certainly there are enough of them! A man
who bets wants to make money without work, and that on the face of it is
a dishonourable aspiration; if he robs some one, I do not in the
faintest degree try to palliate his crime--he is a responsible being, or
ought to be one, and he has no excuse for pilfering. I should never aid
any man who suffered through betting, and I would not advise any one
else to do so. My appeal to the selfish instincts of the gudgeons who
are hooked by the bookmakers is made only for the sake of the helpless
creatures who suffer for the follies and blundering cupidity of the
would-be sharper. I abhor the bookmakers, but I do not blame them
alone; the sight of means to do ill deeds makes ill deeds done, and they
are doubtless tempted to roguery by the very simpletons who complain
when they meet the reward of their folly. I am solely concerned with the
innocents who fare hardly because of their selfish relatives' reckless
want of judgment, and for them, and them alone, my efforts are engaged.
_May, 1888_
_DEGRADED MEN_.
The man of science derives suggestive knowledge from the study of mere
putrefaction; he places an infusion of common hay-seeds or meat or fruit
in his phials, and awaits events; presently a drop from one of the
infusions is laid on the field of the microscope, and straightly the
economy of a new and strange kingdom is seen by the observer. The
microscopist takes any kind of garbage; he watches the bacteria and
their mysterious development, and he reaches at last the most
significant conclusions regarding the health and growth and diseases of
the highest organizations. The student of human nature must also bestow
his attention on disease of mind if he would attain to any real
knowledge of the strange race to which he belongs. We develop, it is
true, but there are modes and modes of development. I have often pointed
out that a steady process of degeneration goes on side by side with the
unfolding of new and healthy powers in the animal and vegetable
kingdoms. The great South American lizards grow strong and splendid in
hue amid the rank freedom of pampas or forest; but their poor relatives
in the sunless caves of Transylvania grow milky white, flabby, and
stone-blind. The creatures in the Kentucky caves are all aborted in some
way or other; the birds in far-off islands lose the power of flight, and
the shrivelled wings gradually sink under the skin, and show us only a
tiny network of delicate bones when the creature is stripped to the
skeleton. The condor soars magnificently in the thin air over the
Andes--it can rise like a kite or drop like a thunderbolt: the weeka of
New Zealand can hardly get out of the way of a stick aimed by an active
man. The proud forest giant sucks up the pouring moisture from the great
Brazilian river; the shoots that rise under the shadow of the monster
tree are weakened and blighted by lack of light and free air. The same
astounding work goes on among the beings who are so haughty in their
assumption of the post of creation's lords. The healthy child born of
healthy parents grows up amid pure air and pure surroundings; his
tissues are nourished by strength-giving food, he lives according to
sane rules, and he becomes round-limbed, full-chested, and vigorous. The
poor little victim who first sees the light in the Borough or Shadwell,
or in the noxious alleys of our reeking industrial towns, receives foul
air, mere atmospheric garbage, into his lungs; he becomes thin-blooded,
his unwholesome pallor witnesses to his weakness of vitality, his
muscles are atrophied, and even his hair is ragged, lustreless,
ill-nurtured. In time he transmits his feebleness to his successors; and
we have the creatures who stock our workhouses, hospitals, and our
gaols--for moral degradation always accompanies radical degradation of
the physique.
So, if we study the larger aspects of society, we find that in all
grades we have large numbers of individuals who fall out of the line
that is steadfastly progressing, and become stragglers,
camp-followers--anything you will. Let a cool and an unsentimental
observer bend himself to the study of degraded human types, and he will
learn things that will sicken his heart if he is weak, and strengthen
him in his resolve to work gallantly during his span of life if he is
strong. Has any one ever fairly tried to face the problem of
degradation? Has any one ever learned how it is that a distinct form of
mental disease seems to lurk in all sorts of unexpected fastnesses,
ready to breathe a numbing and poisonous vapour on those who are not
fortified against the moral malaria? I am not without experience of the
fell chances and changes of life; I venture therefore to use some
portion of the knowledge that I have gathered in order to help to
fortify the weak and make the strong wary.
If you wander on the roads in our country, you are almost sure to meet
men whom you instinctively recognize as fallen beings. What their
previous estate in life may have been you cannot tell, but you know that
there has been a fall, and that you are looking on a moral wreck. The
types are superficially varied, but an essential sameness, not always
visible at first sight, connects them and enables you to class them as
you would class the specimens in a gallery of the British Museum. As you
walk along on a lonely highway, you meet a man who carries himself with
a kind of jaunty air. His woeful boots show glimpses of bare feet, his
clothes have a bright gloss in places, and they hang untidily; but his
coat is buttoned with an attempt at smartness, and his ill-used hat is
set on rakishly. You note that the man wears a moustache, and you learn
in some mysterious way that he was once accustomed to be very trim and
spruce in person. When he speaks, you find that you have a hint of a
cultivated accent; he sounds the termination "ing" with precision, and
you also notice that such words as "here," "there," "over," are
pronounced with a peculiar broad vowel sound at the end. He cannot look
you boldly in the face, and it is hard to catch a sight of his eyes, but
you may take for granted that the eyes are bad and shifty. The cheeks
are probably a little pendulous, and the jaw hangs with a certain
slackness. The whole visage looks as if it had been cast in a tolerably
good mould and had somehow run out of shape a little. Your man is fluent
and communicative; he mouths his sentences with a genteel roll in his
voice, and he punctuates his talk with a stealthy, insincere laugh which
hardly rises above the dignity of a snigger.
Now how does such a man come to be tramping aimlessly on a public road?
He does not know that he is going to any place in particular; he is
certainly not walking for the sake of health, though he needs health
rather badly. Why is he in this plight? You do not need to wait long for
a solution, if the book of human experience has been your study. That
man is absolutely certain to begin bewailing his luck--it is always
"luck." Then he has a choice selection of abuse to bestow on large
numbers of people who have trodden him down--he is always down-trodden;
and he proves to you that, but for the ingratitude of A, the roguery of
B, the jealousy of C, the undeserved credit obtained by the despicable
D, he would be in "a far different position to-day, sir." If he is an
old officer--and a few gentlemen who once bore Her Majesty's commission
are now to be found on the roads, or in casual wards, or lounging about
low skittle-alleys and bagatelle or billiard tables--he will allude to
the gambling that went on in the regiment. "How could a youngster keep
out of the swim?" All went well with him until he took to late hours and
devilled bones; "then in the mornings we were all ready for a peg; and I
should like to see the man who could get ready for parade after a hard
night unless he had something in the shape of a reviver." So he prates
on. He curses the colonel, the commander-in-chief, and the Army
organization in general; he gives leering reminiscences of garrison
belles--reminiscences that make a pure minded man long to inflict some
sort of chastisement on him; and thus, while he thinks he is impressing
you with an overpowering sense of his bygone rank and fashion, he really
unfolds the history of a feeble unworthy fellow who carries a strong
tinge of rascality about him. He is always a victim, and he illustrates
the unvarying truth of the maxim that a dupe is a rogue minus
cleverness. The final crash which overwhelmed him was of course a
horse-racing blunder. He would have recovered his winter's losses had
not a gang of thieves tampered with the favourite for the City and
Suburban. "Do you think, sir, that Highflyer could not have given
Stonemason three stone and a beating?" You modestly own your want of
acquaintance with the powers of the famous quadrupeds, and the
infatuated dupe goes on, "I saw how Bill Whipcord was riding; he eased
at the corner, when I wouldn't have taken two thousand for my bets, and
you could see that he let Stonemason up. I had taken seven to four eight
times in hundreds, and that broke me." The ragged raffish man never
thinks that he was quite ready to plunder other people; he grows
inarticulate with rage only when he remembers how he was bitten instead
of being the biter. His watery eyes slant as you near a roadside inn,
and he is certain to issue an invitation. Then you see what really
brought him low. It may be a lovely warm day, when the acrid reek of
alcohol is more than usually abhorrent; but he must take something
strong that will presently inflame the flabby bulge of his cheeks and
set his evil eyes watering more freely than ever. Gin is his favourite
refreshment, because it is cheap, and produces stupefaction more rapidly
than any other liquid. Very probably he will mix gin and ale in one
horrid draught--and in that case you know that he is very far gone
indeed on the downward road. If he can possibly coax the change out of
you when the waiter puts it down he will do so, for he cannot resist the
gleam of the coins, and he will improvise the most courageous lies with
an ease which inspires awe. He thanks you for nothing; he hovers between
cringing familiarity and patronage; and, when you gladly part with him,
he probably solaces himself by muttering curses on your meanness or your
insolence. Once more--how does the faded military person come to be on
the roads? We shall come to that presently.
Observe the temporary lord of the tap-room when you halt on the dusty
roads and search for tea or lunch. He is in black, and a soiled
handkerchief is wound round his throat like an eel. He wears a soft felt
hat which has evidently done duty as a night-cap many times, and he
tries to bear himself as though the linen beneath his pinned-up coat
were of priceless quality. You know well enough that he has no shirt on,
for he would sell one within half an hour if any Samaritan fitted him
out. His boots are carefully tucked away under the bench, and his sharp
knees seem likely to start through their greasy casing. As soon as he
sees you he determines to create an impression, and he at once draws you
into the conversation. "Now, sir, you and I are scholars--I am an old
Balliol man myself--and I was explaining to these good lads the meaning
of the phrase which had puzzled them, as it has puzzled many more.
_Casus belli_, sir--that is what we find in this local rag of a journal;
and _status quo ante bellum_. Now, sir, these ignorant souls couldn't
tell what was meant, so I have been enlightening them. I relax my mind
in this way, though you would hardly think it the proper place for a
Balliol man, while that overfed brute up at the Hall can drive out with
a pair of two-hundred-guinea bays, sir. Fancy a gentleman and a scholar
being in this company, sir! Now Jones, the landlord there, is a good man
in his way--oh, no thanks Jones; it is not a compliment!--and I'd like
to see the man who dared say that I'm not speaking the truth, for I used
to put my hands up like a good one when we were boys at the old
'varsity, sir. Jones, this gentleman would like something; and I don't
mind taking a double dose of Glenlivat with a brother-scholar and a
gentleman like myself." So the mawkish creature maunders on until one's
gorge rises; but the stolid carters, the idle labourers, the shoemaker
from the shop round the corner, admire his eloquence, and enjoy the
luxury of pitying a parson and an aristocrat. How very numerous are the
representatives of this type, and how unspeakably odious they are! This
foul weed in dirty clothing assumes the pose of a bishop; he swears at
the landlord, he patronizes the shoemaker--who is his superior in all
ways--he airs the feeble remnants of his Latin grammar and his stock
quotations. He will curse you if you refuse him drink, and he will
describe you as an impostor or a cad; while, if you are weak enough to
gratify his taste for spirits, he will glower at you over his glass, and
sicken you with fulsome flattery or clumsy attempts at festive wit.
Enough of this ugly creature, whose baseness insults the light of God's
day! We know how he will end; we know how he has been a fraud throughout
his evil life, and we can hardly spare even pity for him. It is well if
the fellow has no lady-wife in some remote quarter--wife whom he can rob
or beg from, or even thrash, when he searches her out after one of his
rambles from casual ward to casual ward.
In the wastes of the great cities the army of the degraded swarm. Here
is the loose-lipped rakish wit, who tells stories in the common
lodging-house kitchen. He has a certain brilliancy about him which lasts
until the glassy gleam comes over his eyes, and then he becomes merely
blasphemous and offensive. He might be an influential writer or
politician, but he never gets beyond spouting in a pot-house debating
club, and even that chance of distinction does not come unless he has
written an unusually successful begging-letter. Here too is the broken
professional man. His horrid face is pustuled, his hands are like
unclean dough, he is like a creature falling to pieces; yet he can show
you pretty specimens of handwriting, and, if you will steady him by
giving him a drink of ale, he will write your name on the edge of a
newspaper in copper-plate characters or perform some analogous feat. All
the degraded like to show off the remains of their accomplishments, and
you may hear some odious being warbling. "_Ah, che la morte!_" with
quite the air of a leading tenor. In the dreadful purlieus lurk the poor
submissive ne'er-do-well, the clerk who has been imprisoned for
embezzlement, the City merchant's son who is reduced to being the tout
of a low bookmaker, the preacher who began as a youthful phenomenon and
ended by embezzling the Christmas dinner fund, the forlorn brute whose
wife and children have fled from him, and who spends his time between
the police-cells and the resorts of the vilest. If you could know the
names of the tramps who yell and make merry over their supper in the
murky kitchen, you would find that people of high consideration would be
touched very painfully could they be reminded of the existence of
certain relatives. Degraded, degraded are they all! And why?
The answer is brief, and I have left it until last, for no particular
elaboration is needed. From most painful study I have come to the
conclusion that nearly all of our degraded men come to ruin through
idleness in the first instance; drink, gambling, and other forms of
debauch follow, but idleness is the root-evil. The man who begins by
saying, "It's a poor heart that never rejoices," or who refers to the
danger of making Jack a dull boy, is on a bad road. Who ever heard of a
worker--a real toiler--becoming degraded? Worn he may be, and perhaps
dull to the influence of beauty and refinement; but there is always some
nobleness about him. The man who gives way to idleness at once prepares
his mind as a soil for evil seeds; the universe grows tiresome to him;
the life-weariness of the old Romans attacks him in an ignoble form,
and he begins to look about for distractions. Then his idleness, from
being perhaps merely amusing, becomes offensive and suspicious; drink
takes hold upon him; his moral sense perishes; only the husks of his
refinement remain; and by and by you have the slouching wanderer who is
good for nothing on earth. He is despised of men, and, were it not that
we know the inexhaustible bounty of the Everlasting Pity, we might
almost think that he was forgotten of Heaven. Stand against idleness.
Anything that age, aches, penury, hard trial may inflict on the soul is
trifling. Idleness is the great evil which leads to all others.
Therefore work while it is day.
_September, 1888._
_A REFINEMENT OF "SPORTING" CRUELTY._