perty, and to participate in this property,—to which they have no more right than A. has to that of B.—is the constant endeavour of a vast number of crafty and designing individuals; consequently, to hold their own, it became almost a matter of necessity to throw dust into the eyes of such persons, or, as our friend Phil facetiously termed it, “Give ’em a pinch of eye-snuff.”
The following incidents, which occurred within my own experience, are an illustration of Phil’s capacity in this respect, and are, as I think, deserving of remembrance.
In the year 18—, before the days of race-horse vans and railroads, most of the horses that were trained in this establishment in the north of England, and who were entered for the Derby and Oaks, and various other races in the south, as at Newmarket, Epsom, Ascot, and elsewhere, used to travel by easy journeys to Newmarket shortly before the first meeting of the year at that place, called the Craven meeting, where they remained during the three meetings which preceded the great events at Epsom, those horses which had engagements at Newmarket running them out during their stay there: they then again proceeded southwards to take up their quarters in the neighbourhood of Epsom to fulfil their various engagements there and at Ascot.
In those days it was quite an exceptional thing for a professional betting-man to keep a race-horse; now things are entirely altered, the greater portion of race-horse proprietors being composed of these professional gentry. But at the time of which I speak, there was a horse, which we will call Gosport, that was entered for the Derby, and trained in the stable to which I refer, and was the property of a well-known professional speculator of considerable calibre. This horse had some status in the betting market, and was tolerably supported by his owner, his friends, and the public. Also in the same stable were trained for that event several other horses, and amongst them a horse we will call Munster, of whom I shall speak hereafter.
For some time the Spotts had observed with surprise that from certain heavy and marked operations on the Turf Exchange, it was evident private information relative to their stable had found its way to quarters it had no business to have reached, and for awhile discovery eluded their vigilance. At length, judging principally from the quarter in which these betting operations were carried on, they were led to think that the lad who attended to the horse Gosport, belonging to the betting man above referred to, conveyed intelligence to his master, and they were the more confirmed in this suspicion when they came to recollect the anxiety expressed by him on the horse’s first arrival there, that this lad should always ride him in his exercise and “look after him” (as the technical term is). Accordingly this boy’s movements were, without exciting his suspicions, carefully watched, and it was discovered he was constantly writing letters, and on one of the head lads chaffing him on this literary weakness, and saying he supposed he was writing to his sweetheart, he replied, “Nay, I is only writing to moother.” Sure enough, all his letters had been directed to his “moother;” but this evidence of filial tenderness was lost upon Phil Spott, to whom, of course, this explanation was conveyed, and who (to use his own expression) said, “that tale was too lovely to wash.” So one day, by a preconcerted signal between him and one of the head lads, when the writer had just finished one of these filial epistles, and was about to wafer it, he was suddenly called away by Phil, who was in the yard waiting the signal, near the window of the boys’ common room, on some pretence, with a view to his leaving the letter in his hurry behind him. The plan answered to perfection; the head lad opened the letter directed to “moother,” when behold not a word was there written to his mother, but a letter was enclosed therein directed to his master, Mr. R, Street, Manchester!
All this occurred in the North previous to the departure of the horses for Newmarket; yet not a word was said to the lad, nor the slightest sign exhibited that suspicions had been aroused respecting him. The lad found his letter quite safe where he had left it on his return to the room, and he was permitted, apparently unnoticed, to go on writing to “moother.” All this was “nuts” to the astute Phil, his suspicions being now almost wholly confined to this lad; while in order the more fully to confirm them, several ingenious little traps were laid, such as keeping a horse in the stable for a day or two, or only letting him walk for that time, or sending some Derby horse up a good strong gallop with an old one, taking care either that the young one had a good deal the best of it at the finish; or perhaps with some other Derby horse sent up a strong gallop in a similar manner, care was taken that he had the worst of it according to the result required. I need hardly add that in both such cases the redoubtable Phil bestrode the apparently beaten animal: he was much too clever a workman to trust to any one else to do such handiwork as this. Accordingly, in every instance a letter was written to “moother,” and information was duly received from Phil’s agents in London and Manchester that such horses were backed or laid against as the case might be, and that these movements in the market were always made in one and the same quarter, not by Mr. R himself, but by others selected by him as his agents in these operations, so as to avoid creating suspicions amongst other speculators, he being known as an adherent of this stable.
There now no longer remained a shadow of doubt, and Phil, as he graphically termed it, “had got his hand upon both cracksman and fence” (Anglicè, thief and receiver of stolen goods), but “mum” was the word as yet—not a syllable was to be uttered. He had not yet played his trump cards. “A nice hot-spiced nut I’ll bake for you, Mr. R, and I wish you a good digestion after it;” was Phil’s observation, and how the fence relished this little delicacy, artfully cooked for him by the hand of Philip, as is about to be told, I will leave you, my readers, to imagine.
The string of horses arrived at Newmarket as usual, as above described, shortly before the Craven meeting, and during the last Newmarket race meeting preceding their departure for Epsom,
