And now I have tried to clear the ground on one hand a little, and my last and uttermost good word has been said for the Turf.  With sorrow I say that, after all excuses are made, the cool observer must own that it is indeed a vast engine of national demoralization, and the subtle venom which it injects into the veins of the Nation creeps along through channels of which Lord Beaconsfield never dreamed.  I might call the Turf a canker, but a canker is only a local ailment, whereas the evils of betting have now become constitutional so far as the State is concerned.  If we cut out the whole tribe of bookmakers and betting-agents, and applied such cautery as would prevent any similar growth from arising in the place wherefrom we excised them, we should do very little good; for the life-blood of Britain is tainted, and no superficial remedy can cure her now.  I shut my eyes on the bookmakers, and I only spare attention for the myriads who make the bookmakers’ existence possible—­who would evolve new bookmakers from their midst if we exterminated the present tribe to-morrow.  It is not the professional bettors who cause the existence of fools; it is the insensate fools who cause the existence of professional bettors.

Gambling used to be mainly confined to the upper classes; it is now a raging disease among that lower middle-class which used to form the main element of our national strength, and the tradesman whose cart comes to your area in the morning gambles with all the reckless abandonment that used to be shown by the Hon. A. Deuceace or Lady Betty when George the Third was King.  Your clerk, shopman, butcher, baker, barber—­especially the barber—­ask their companions, “What have you done on the Lincoln?” or “How do you stand for the Two Thousand?” just as ordinary folks ask after each other’s health.  Tradesmen step out of their shops in the morning and telegraph to their bookmaker just as they might to one of their wholesale houses; there is not a town in broad England which has not its flourishing betting men, and some very small towns can maintain two or three.  The bookmakers are usually publicans, barbers, or tobacconists; but whatever they are they invariably drive a capital trade.  In the corner of a smoking-room you may see a quiet, impassive man sitting daily in a contemplative manner; he does not drink much; he smokes little, and he appears to have nothing in particular to worry him.  If he knows you well, he will scarcely mind your presence; men (and boys) greet him, and little, gentle colloquies take place from time to time; the smartest man could detect nothing, and yet the noiseless, placid gentleman of the smoking-room registers thirty or forty bets in a day.  That is one type which I have watched for hours, days, months.  There are dozens of other types, but I need not attempt to sketch them; it is sufficient to say that the poison has taken hard hold on us, and that I see every symptom of a national decadence.