The “Straight Tip”

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 273, 14 March 1889, Page 3

The “Straight Tip”

If you enter into conversation with a casual I' ranger, say, in a train in London, it does not matter whether first, second, or third class, you are always safe if you talk about race-horses, This habit < f mind is growing almost to a mania, and many people who really do not care about the subject, and are not gamblers at all, pretend a kind of propitiatory conversational interest in it, partly proceeding from an obscure vanity and desire to be considered knowing. The mania is having an effect even upon the language. What is commoner than to hear a person spoken of as an “ outsider ” —a vague term gf abuse, which, on the turf, has a definite meaning. Women seem to Ihave caught up the cant-of the thing as well as men, and, if you merely remark that it is a fine day, will Sobably reply that it is good weather for empton and Sandown. I fancy the actual gambling, however, is what attracts the women. A man may talk racing, and know the names of the horses, and the odds, simply to be thought “in the know,” and venture a languid “ ten bob ” with a friend who h as Mg a fool as himself; but a woman wants to get something, and does not care so much about making a theatrical effect of being a sporting character. It is not the kind of thing which appeals to her vanity. But she can make a hero of a successful jockey, for he gpt? her something. The upper classes have always patronised the turf, and, therefore, do not come within any present purview. The remarkable thing is that apparently the only solitary and unique result of compulsory elementary schooling is that every lad in a long overcoat, with the collar up, and a shallow hard felt hat, too largp f' r his brainless noddle, reads “odds” in the newspapers which concern themselves wit h such studies. He may occasionally read criminal literature, but he always gets up “odds.” His favourite opportunities are Sunday mornings, before the “ houses ” open, and while his boots are being blacked ; and ' any evening in one of the “ houses,” where r ragged and filthy newspaper devoted Entirely to gambling jnay be seen gratis, livery cabman, every omnibus driver, even porters at stations, and, of course, all publicans and potboys, get up “ odds.” It is the one thing they are in earnest about, besides making money. It is a religion.—The Gentleman.