Whether the money of the player rolls
around the green carpet of the race-course or upon that of M. Blanc at
Monte Carlo, the impulse that keeps it in motion is the same, and the
book-maker's slate is as dangerous as the roulette-table. The manager
of the one piles up a fortune as surely as the director of the other,
and in both cases the money seems to be made with an almost
mathematical certainty and regularity. They tell of one day--that of
the Grand Prix of 1877--when Saffery, the Steel of the French turf and
the leviathan of bookmakers, cleared as much as fifty thousand dollars.
Wright, Valentine, Morris and many more make in proportion to their
outlay. Four or five years ago these worthies had open offices on the
Rue de Choiseul and the Boulevard des Italiens, where betting on the
English and French races went on night and day; but the police,
following the lead of that of London, stepped in to put an end to this
traffic in contraband goods, and the shops for the sale of this sort of
merchandise are now shut up. But if all this has been done, and if even
those great _voitures de poules_ which once made the most picturesque
ornament of the turf, have been banished out of sight, it has been
impossible to uproot the practice of betting, which has more devotees
to-day than ever before.
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