THE LAST NEW LONDON PLAGUE;

OR,

A WORD ABOUT BETTING OFFICES.

We make no pretensions to be political economists, but we think we may venture to assert as an axiom indisputable, that it is a fair proof of the prosperity of any calling or trade when new men embark their time and money in it daily. For example, take Life Insurance Companies. How many have started into existence within the last half dozen years, aye, within the last two years? We have no statistical returns at hand to refer to, and we do not require any. We simply ask an observant and impartial reader whether he can recollect a month passing over his head without his seeing a fresh advertisement of some new company of the sort, with directors, trustees, bankers, solicitors, standing counsel, actuaries, auditors, secretary, &c., all complete, and with a fresh set of tables, and two or three "new principles" to recommend it to the notice of a provident public? We ask such observant reader, does he doubt that these companies are very profitable affairs to those who "get them up?" Does not the very fact of their multiplicity bear witness to their prosperity ?

Take again mining companies. If every acre of Col. Fremont's Californian estates were made a separate mine, we doubt whether they would supply one a-piece to the companies already formed and daily springing into existence to dig up, wash, crush, and export the precious metal. Don't they pay also?

We are not speaking of their permanent prosperity, because as it appears that each company is to fight for its mine, we doubt whether they will "carry on the war" long; but we speak of the profit which somebody must derive from such schemes as evidenced in their constantly increasing number.

Now we have not a word to say against insurance companies. They encourage providence and forethought, and prevent much want and destitution in the world, and probably the more of them there are the better will these desirable objects be attained. It is true that we don't thoroughly appreciate all the "new principles," and we suspect that the "new tables" are old ones with 10d. turned into 8d. and so on in proportion, while the "indisputability," &c., we appreciate at their true value. No matter, the end is good, so we heartily wish prosperity to them all. We don't even quarrel with mining companies, though we have not the slightest intention of investing our earnings in any one of them, and we by no means advise our readers to do so. Still, digging, crushing, washing, and exporting gold are unobjectionable occupations, and so we wish success to the mining companies.

There is, however, another bait for this investment of superfluous cash, held out to the good citizens of the metropolis, which is flourishing most wonderfully, but which we fear is neither beneficial to morality, like the insurance companies, nor harmless in its objects, like the mining companies. It is not extensively advertised like them, nor does it parade

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a list of directors, bankers, &c.; it is modest and retiring in its attitude. Its abode is sometimes a slip of a cigar shop, occasionally the bar of a beer shop, often a quiet looking place with a wire blind, and "Mr. Tomkins's Office" inscribed on it, and here and there a print shop. We allude to Betting Offices. If our reader should happen to be a quiet country gentleman, or a prosperous London merchant, or a professional man deeply engaged in the mysteries of his calling, he will probably say, surely such low places are not worth noticing. Who goes to them but the dissipated and the worthless?" Of such a reader, or of any other who may entertain similar sentiments, we ask only a little patience while we present him with a little sketch of these places as they are, their doings, patrons, and frequenters; and we will leave him to judge whether they are not worth a little more serious consideration than is generally bestowed on them.

Tom Surcingle began life as a stable-boy at Newmarket. He was a sharp lad, and groomed a horse as well as anybody in England. He rode as well as he groomed, never went beyond the right pace while giving the horses their exercise, and handled their mouths with a lighter hand than most of his fellows. Tom got a fair salary, and increased it by a judicious bet now and then, made on the strength of the information he picked up in the stable. He seemed on the high road to the summit of a stableboy's ambition, to become a jockey. But alas! Tom's hopes were blighted by his personal infirmity-he grew too fast. He tried gin and starvation to "stunt himself," but all to no purpose. Nature had decreed that he should be five feet eight, and weigh ten stone and a half, and so were Tom's prospects in life blasted.

"A fellow can't be a stable-boy for ever," thought Tom, and so he determined to strike out a new course. First, he advertised for a situa tion as groom to a single gentleman, and soon got one in the establish ment of the Hon. Charles Harebrain.

The Honourable Charley (as his friends called him) was a very "fast" young gentleman indeed. As a younger son, he enjoyed a paternal allowance of 400l. a year, on the strength of which he had chambers in the Albany, six horses at livery in town, four hunters at ditto in Leices tershire, and a little villa at St. John's Wood, where somebody with astonishingly pretty bonnets and an unexceptionable brougham, lived, and called herself the Hon. Mrs. Harebrain. How many times four hundred pounds the Hon. Charley spent, or owed, in the course of the year we are not prepared to say, though several irate tradesmen declared, after the young gentleman had retired to Baden-Baden for his health, that the prefix to his name was the greatest of misnomers. Strange, by the way, that tradesmen never find out these things till all the mischief is done.

In the establishment of this scion of nobility, Tom Surcingle rapidly | completed the education he had commenced in that very questionable school of morals a racing stable. He was a far better judge of the world than his master; for while the latter daily lost its respect by his extravagance and consequent state of need, he daily profited by his master's errors, and put by money for a rainy day. Tom was completely in his patron's confidence: knew all his debts and difficulties, and his want of means Tom could always find him a customer for his horses, when he wanted to sell one, and of course when he disposed of one for guineas he pocketed the odd shillings and accounted only for pounds, besides getting a hand

some bonus from each party to the transaction. At the end of a twelvemonth the Hon. Charley was off to Baden-Baden, as aforesaid, the sheriff of Middlesex took possession of his stud, Mr. Chopkins of the Stock Exchange took possession of the villa at St. John's Wood, including the pretty bonnets and their wearers, and Tom Surcingle was out of place.

"The world was all before him where to choose

His place of rest," &c.

Tom Surcingle opened his money-box and counted its contents. Bank notes, gold and silver, amounted to one hundred and seventy-eight pounds, nine shillings, and sixpence. "Not bad for a year's work," thought Tom; and he felt sorely tempted to abandon his idea of henceforth leading an independent life, and to try for another such situation; but, to use his own simile, the odds were a thousand to one against his ever getting such a profitable one again.

Tom dressed himself in a suit of his late master's clothes, and being a tolerably good-looking fellow and well built, he would have passed muster with the multitude for a gentleman. Having completed his toilet to his satisfaction, he strutted down to see his friend, Mr. Santiagos, a Spanish Jew, who dealt in tobacco, and whose shop was situate in Jermyn Street.

Mr. Santiagos stared at Tom in his elegant apparel, and swore that he looked far handsomer than "that poor Carlos, poor devil," meaning Tom's late master. Tom accepted the compliment, and then proceeded to business. He wanted to rent half of Santiagos' shop as a betting office. He showed the Jew how his "lists" would draw scores of people to the place, how some of them would of course smoke, and consequently how his scheme would bring profit to them both. The Jew liked the idea, but wanted a share in the betting profits. This Tom would not consent to, and a pretty little contest ensued between the pair, who were admirably matched in cunning and love of pelf. Tom gained the day, however, the Jew contenting himself with extorting an exorbitant rent for the share of the shop, but which it suited Tom's purpose to pay.

The next thing was to prepare his "lists of odds" on the different forthcoming races; and then to advertise in a Sunday sporting paper that "Captain Trumpington's lists are posted at Mr. Santiagos', tobacconist, Jermyn Street."

Tom was now established as a betting man. He had a clerk who sat at a sort of little pigeon-hole, something like those of the money-takers at the theatres, and who received the money of those who came to invest it on any horse, and gave them in return a ticket. Thus, if Jeames Plush, Lord Tomnoddy's tall footman, came to back the "Ballet Girl" for the Oaks at 20 to 1, Jeames handed in his sovereign to the clerk and received a little card, thus :

which would entitle him to receive 217. (namely 201. gain, and his 1. stake back again) from the office, in case "Ballet Girl" should win the Oaks. These tickets were torn from a book with duplicates attached to them, on which copies were made of those given out; and when Tom came every evening to look over the book, the clerk handed him up the day's receipts as shown by the duplicates. Let us now see what sort of people patronized Tom's establishment: for which purpose we will station ourselves inside the pigeon-hole beside the clerk.

The shop is very full of people. Some are well dressed and of gentlemanly appearance, but they are decidedly the minority: others have a seedy, dissipated look, and wear dirty embroidered shirts and faded dress waistcoats in the morning, which suggests to the observer that they are the haunters of night-houses and "hells," and other such reputable establishments: some have a neat, clean, sober air, and form a remark able contrast to the last class, in fact they look like bankers' clerks, linen-drapers' apprentices, shopmen in west-end houses, or tradesmen: others are dressed in many colours, with gilt or plaited buttons on their coats, bands on their hats, and occasionally powder in their hair; they are the knights of the shoulder-knot and the napkin, and they are perhaps the most numerous class present.

What a Babel of voices ! How the different classes herd together; all at least but the mercantile portion, who look shyly at each other, and and at every one else, and evidently are in great trepidation lest they should be seen in such a place. The footmen are very talkative, and those who serve sporting masters, are clearly looked up to as great authorities.

"Is it true that 'Ercules won't start?" says one of them in blue and crimson to another in green and buff.

"Not a bit of it; they mean to run him, but he ain't no good; w know all about him."

"Back Greenacre," says another knowing gentleman in grey and scarlet; "take my advice."

Blue and crimson fishes out a half sovereign, and rushes up to the

clerk

"I'll take the hodds about Greenacre-ten bob."

The clerk writes out the ticket without a word, hands it over, and slips the half sovereign into the cash-box.

The gentlemanly-looking men are talking quietly together. They don't say much, and no one ever expresses his opinion that any particular horse will win. When one of them goes to make his bet, he hands his money in so quietly, and whispers the clerk so lowly, that no one knows what horse he backs, or the amount of his stake.

The dissipated-looking individuals, in the seedy evening costume, have a great deal to say, but as their conversation is a very peculiar slang, scarcely intelligible to any but themselves, we forbear presenting a speci men of it. Their bets are very small in amount, though very often ali they possess in the world; and that fishy-eyed man, with the blue-andwhite satin waistcoat, pawned his only pair of boots an hour ago, to get the five shillings he is handing over to the clerk, which is the reason why he appears in the very inconvenient chaussure of dancing pumps on a rainy day.

The shopmen, and the clerks, and the tradesmen skulk about, trying to overhear a little of the conversation of those who look most "knowing,"

or else they peer over the lists very carefully, and end by backing the favourite, which somehow or other never wins.

Outside the door is a young man who has passed the house once or twice, as though attracted to it by some diabolical fascination, and yet afraid to enter. He is mentally discussing the question whether it is a theft or a venial irregularity to take his master's money for the purpose of betting on Flare-up at 60 to 1. Strange to say, he decides on the latter, though by what curious process of logic he arrives at that decision we cannot say; at all events he comes in, hands over a five-pound note to the clerk, and receives a ticket for £305, in case Flare-up (who, by the by, is very lame, but he doesn't know it) should win the Derby. Within a week the young gentleman is before his Worship at Bow Street on a charge of embezzlement, where the Flare-up ticket is produced as corroborative evidence, and he is fully committed for trial, blubbering out protestations of repentance, which are doubtless very sincere.

Tom is driving a most thriving trade-one that can scarcely fail to pay. Take the case of the Derby. Tom's lists offer "odds " against every horse entered for that race-ranging from the favourite at 3 to 1, to the veriest "outsider" at 100 to 1. Now there are some hundred and fifty horses on Tom's list for this race, but as only about five and twenty eventually start, it is clear that Tom Surcingle pockets all the money which has been laid out at his office on the remaining one hundred and twentyfive. Then again, with regard to the twenty-five which do start, it is clear that only one horse of the lot can win. On that one horse Tom has to pay, but on the other twenty-four he is a gainer. It is scarcely possible, therefore, that he should be out of pocket, though such things do occur occasionally; as, for instance, when the favourite wins and has been very largely backed. In this case it may happen that Tom's losses on this one horse exceed his gains on all the others, though the veriest tyro in arithmetic must see that such a chance is a most distant one.

But the innocent reader must not imagine that when a betting-office keeper loses to a great extent, he sacrifices himself nobly and pays his losses-not at all. He has two excellent resources: in the first place, he can take his stand by the law of his country, which makes betting beyond a certain amount illegal. So that Tom's customers cannot recover if he chooses to "repudiate" à la Jonathan. Secondly, as he has all his customers' cash paid down, and they only hold his tickets, he can, as soon as he finds himself" hard hit," close his shop, walk off with the money, and open an establishment in Liverpool or Manchester, or any other large provincial town, under a new name.

Tom Surcingle had no such ill luck. His gains poured in merrily, and Tom became a great sporting man-a man well known in "the ring". a man who was safe to pay his losings when he had any. He kept his own grooms now, and drove some of the best horses in the country. In two years he had cleared the sum of £7,000, and picked up such an acquaintance among sporting men that "Captain Trumpington" has been seen more than once arm-in-arm with a real live lord; while we have been privately informed that the St. John's Wood Villa, the pretty bonnets and their wearers, and the unexceptionable brougham before mentioned, are all actually at this moment under the protection of the "gallant" youth.

Now whence has come Tom Surcingle's gain? Has he worked for it and earned it? Has he benefited any class of the community in its