The Times of March 23rd contained the will of Mr.
Edward C. Mitchell, the racing journalist who for many years was sporting editor of the Star, writing under the familiar pseudonym of "Captain Coe." The dynasty is to continue, but on conditions, Mr. Mitchell leaving his son Walter "the sole right to use the name of `Captain Coe' on his paying my trustees the sum of £10, and entering into a covenant with them that he will never gamble nor give up his regular Stock Exchange work in favour of it." The italics are ours. The Daily Mail next day contained a statement attributed ta Mr. Walter Mitchell to the effect that be fully appreciated this advice : "My father knew so much about horse-racing that be scarcely ever made a bet, and he always advised young men to leave horses alone." Mrs. Mitchell, the widow, is reported to have added that the clause in the will had no personal application, as her son had never given his father any anxiety on the score of gambling. "But my husband in his profession had seen so much of the folly of betting," she concluded. Beyond observing that they have not been reproduced in the pages of the Star, we are content with recording these facts and utterances with only one comment. The members of the Quaker families (the Cadburys and the Rowntrees) who own and control the Star disapproved of betting as injurious to the community, and so, we now learn, did their chief tipster, and yet they combined to dis- seminate "tips," "finals," and other heady incitements to betting in the pages of the Star. "Business is business" was apparently the all-mastering "inner light" followed by these members of the Society of Friends.
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