down three pounds and pick up four.  Yet the inexorable bookmaker kept on steadily taking the odds; the more he betted, the more money was piled on to the unbeaten horse, and yet few took warning, although they must have seen that the audacious financier was taking on himself an appalling risk.  Well, the peerless colt was pulled out, and, on his way to the starting post, he began to shake blood and matter from his jaws; he could hardly move in the race, and when he was taken to his quarters a surgeon let out yet another pint of pus from the poor beast’s jaw.  Observe that the shrewdest trainer in England, a crowd of stable-boys, the horse’s special attendant, the horse-watchers at Kingsclere, and the casual strangers who saw the favourite gallop—­all these knew nothing apparently about that monstrous abscess, and no one suspected that the colt’s jaw had been splintered.  But “information”—­always information—­evidently reached one quarter, and the host of outsiders lost their money.  Soon afterwards a beautiful colt that had won the Derby was persistently backed for the City and Suburban Handicap.  On paper it seemed as if the race might be regarded as over, for only the last year’s Derby winner appeared to have a chance; but our prescient penciller cared nothing about paper.  Once more he did not trouble himself about betting to figures; he must have laid his book five times over before the flag fell.  Then the nincompoops who refused to attend to danger-signals saw that the beautiful colt which had spun over the same course like a greyhound only ten months before was unable to gallop at all.  The unhappy brute tried for a time, and was then mercifully eased; the bookmaker would have lost L100,000 if his “information” had not been accurate, but that is just the crux—­it was.  So admirably do the bookmakers organize their intelligence department that I hardly know more than three instances in which they have blundered after they really began to lay fiercely against a horse.  They contrive to buy jockeys, stablemen, veterinary surgeons—­indeed, who can tell whom they do not subsidize?  When Belladrum came striding from the fateful hollow in front of Pretender, there was one “leviathan” bookmaker who turned green and began to gasp, for he stood to lose L50,000; but the “leviathan” was spared the trouble of fainting, for the hill choked the splendid Stockwell horse, and “information” was once more vindicated, while Belladrum’s backers paid copious tribute.  Just two years before the leviathan had occasion to turn green our Turf Odysseus really did manage to deceive the great betting corporation with consummate skill.  The whole business throws such a clear light on Turf ethics that I may repeat it for the benefit of those who know little about our great national sport—­the Sport of Kings.  It was rumoured that Hermit had broken a blood-vessel, and the animal was stopped for a little in his work.  Then Odysseus and his chief confederate proceeded to seize their chance.  The horse started at 1000 to 15, and it seemed like a million to one against him, for his rough coat had been left on him, and he looked a ragged equine invalid.  The invalid won, however, by a neck, the Marquis of Hastings was ruined, and the confederates won about L150,000.