Modern Athletics 1868

24 MODERN ATHLETICS. book-maker at nearly all the great metropolitan athletic meetings, is an innovation which no gentleman amateur can view without concern. As betting wholesale and un­ licensed in connexion with the turf has now become un fait accompli, it onlyremains to check by every possible means the spread of the evil in othdeirrections. The tow- path at Putney on the occasion of an Oxford and Cambridge boat race, will bring the gentleman and true lover of sport across scores of these gentry, proprietors of the proverbial satchel andbetting list.The athletic arena is also disgraced by their presence, and even the Oxford andCambridge Billiard matchesare deemed suitableoppor­ tunities for the exercise of their pernicious influences. There is a partial remedy for these abuses. Those who have the management of athletic meetings, can if they choose exclude such "cognoscenti" from their grounds. Unless those who are capable of grappling with theevil judiciously interfere and cope with itn time, the samefate will beial trials of skill amongst amateurs as professional contests have experienced long since.