Large sums were still laid out, but still was there no improvement in his position; and as the time approached, more and more was the horse “peppered at” by his opponents, and even up to the time the bell rang for saddling, this marked and determined opposition to the proved best horse of his year, notoriously known to be even in better trim than he was when he won the Derby, continued with unabated fury. So marked was it, and so unaccountable, that a great Manchester speculator who had been a strong backer of the horse, and had kept his money on him till the morning of the race, whilst one of his friends was assuring him the horse was perfectly well, and that he had seen him that morning in the stable, said: “Nay, my lad, I cannot stand this sort of betting any longer. I never saw one win yet that carried so much brass. I’ll shift mine off his back, at all events, be the cost what it may; he may be well, but he will not win.”
S and his party had been for some time perfectly satisfied in what quarter all this money was laid, and though, of course, laid through several agents to elude suspicion, the ruse failed in deceiving such acute men as had the conduct of this investment, and they, at the suggestion of S, took careful notes of all the bets that they could hear of, that were made with others, which, added to their own, amounted to an enormous sum laid, as they had no doubt, in one quarter.
That something wrong was intended was to them very apparent, but whom to suspect they knew not. Frequent visits were paid to the training quarters, and precautions of all kinds suggested to guard against foul play. All went on, however, perfectly satisfactorily with the horse; he never missed a day’s work or left an oat in his manger; and at Doncaster he arrived in his van perfectly well on the Monday—the St. Leger being on the Wednesday. All the world saw him on the Tuesday morning at exercise, and saw that he was perfectly well and in full force; yet, if possible, at the betting-rooms that night, the opposition to him, from the same quarter, became more and more marked. That same evening S and his party held a consultation, S saying:
“Something must be done, or we shall be done; if the horse is all right to-morrow morning, and the trainer pronounces him so, to what conclusion can we come? If danger there is, that danger sits in the saddle;” and, to make matters more perplexing, the owner was absent. At last, S decided upon what course he would pursue: without resting that night, he at once set to work, through a gentleman of high-standing on the Turf, to bring about an interview between himself and a nobleman of very great influence, and a proprietor of horses in the same stable as New Zealander. This interview took place. He laid before his lordship in a clear and concise manner all the facts as above stated, and on being asked what he would suggest to be done, at once advised to the following effect:
Let the trainer to-morrow morning, if the horse is all right and well, request several gentlemen of position and integrity on the Turf (the more the better) to come and see him in the stable stripped of his clothes, so that they can, one and all, testify to the fact that, if he is beat, he at least has done his duty in bringing him “fit to the post;” and then your lordship must speak to the jockey, and tell him that, although you never have had any reason to doubt his honesty, yet it is impossible to pass unnoticed the enormous sums that have been betted against the horse, especially in a very marked manner, and for a length of time, in a certain quarter; and that such bettings are wholly inconsistent with the horse’s well-known superior qualities, and the notorious fact that he is fit to run, as has been testified to this very day by several leading gentlemen on the Turf; that you impute no wrong intentions to him, but if the horse is beat, whatever sum it may cost you, you are determined on that day after the races to effect a trial, if not with the actual winner of the race, with the best trial horse you can procure, and that that trial shall take place on the St. Leger course, before all the world, who shall be the judges whether or not he ought to have won the Doncaster St. Leger.
These suggestions were carried out to the letter, and New Zealander won the race with the greatest ease, ridden by the jockey to whom his lordship had spoken as above.
Success is at all times gratifying, but this was doubly so, as it completely and entirely removed from the rider all those suspicions which, owing to a strong combination of circumstances, are often very naturally entertained against an innocent and an honest man; and it turned the tables upon those (if such there were) who contemplated effecting by foul means the defeat of the best horse in the race.
SOCIAL ASPECT OF WASHINGTON BEFORE THE DISUNION.
I write of Washington as it will never be again—ere this disastrous conflict inflamed the passions and excited the animosities of not only the North against South, but of one member of a family against another, dividing the closest ties and embittering all social relations.
It was evident to the reflecting, four years ago, that some great revolution was at hand.
Division of the States was constantly discussed. “A bad sign of the times,” said an old Senator to me, “for, in my youth, any one who had mooted the subject would have been ignominiously scouted in society.”
But it was not to discuss politics I took up my pen, as the subject is trite, and stinks in the nostrils of the superficial reader; my aim was rather to sketch the state of society during the last years of the union—its amusements, its tone, and its effect on the mind of a “Britisher.”
The first social duty was a presentation at the White House, or Executive Mansion, as it had been re-named by Miss Lane.
The President appointed the evening as the time when I was to have the honour of introduction to his presence, and it was a rude shock to British feelings, accustomed to pomp and grandeur, as the natural accessories to power, to find the President of the Republic of the United States living in the palace of the nation much as a bankrupt merchant might, by kind permission of his