HONOUR IN "A CROSS."
A TRIAL in the Court of Common Pleas contains some informa- tion which may not be without its use for gentlemen addicted to the turf. A Mr. JACKSON, described in evidence as "a great hopper," was matched to run a race, but with the secret intention of losing it, for the advantage of the betters against him ; a not un- frequent proceeding, which is in the slang tongue called a cross. Mr. JACKSON being a gentleman withal, nice in regard to his ho- nour, desired to lose the race by reason of some physical disability ; and with this view, a surgeon was requested to put a blister on his knee, that the inflammation might be exhibited in proof of his in- capacity. Pills and emetics were desired for the same object ; and the worthy person put himself indeed into such regular training for losing the race, as to bring on a typhus fever. This history gives us a little insight into the practices of the turf, and also shows us a fine passage in the heart of hoppers, who, when intent on cheating their friends and the public in general, as the advertise- ments have it, are yet so scupulously jealous on the point of honour, as to omit no means of obtaining a specious pretext for failure even at some expense of pain. FIELDING would have delighted to mo- ralize on this trait, in his chapter on Honour, in the Life ofJonathan• Wild the Great.
Previous page
