TIN HARES.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19363, 16 July 1928, Page 9

TIN HARES.

BETTING BAN IN SYDNEY.

DEATH KNELL OF SPORT.

(rsou on own coaßißPoKD«rr.) SYDNEY, July 5. The Government's decision, to enforce the law prohibiting betting at tin hare meetings, which, according to the Courts, do not constitute coursing within the meaning of the State law, appears to sound the death knell of the sport, since tin hare coursing without betting would be very much like plum pudding without the plums. Betting will be permitted only at those meetings which have already been advertised; it will then become illegal. It was the Lang Labour Government which pronounced its blessings upon the sport in New South "Wales in the first place. One of Mr Lang's; colleagues, in fact, became popularly known as "The Tin Hare Minister" on account of the licenses issued by Ms department. With the downfall of the Lang Government and the advent of the Bavin Ministry, the flrsVnail was placed in the tin hare's coffin with the abolition of night betting. The latest action is the last straw, so to speak, to break the tin hare's back. That there will be mucH wailing and gnashing of teeth is natural, for it has.been estimated that nearly half a million of money has' been sunk in tin > bare coursing ventures-throughout the State. Not a few shareholders made big money in the boom period; others saw the writing on the wall and disposed of their interests. Others hung on-in the belief that, with such big&nterests involved, the Government wMld not have the courage to take drastic step. ' The tin hare courßing which, although described as a poor man's sport, was quite popular also with the bigger class of plungers, proved an Eldorade for at least one man, Mr F. S. Swindell, an American, who brought with him to New South Wales a fin hare appliance of his own invention, and introduced the new craze. According to report, he is about £40,000 the richer as a result of the successful promotion of the sport in New South Wales. With the parent company firmly established, he left for South Africa, but the story goes that his plans went aßtray there, mainly because of the fact that total-, osator privileges could not be obtained. The enforcement of the prohibition law will be a staggering blow not only to shareholders, but also to trainers, who had imported dogs at big figures. Another sufferer if greyhound racing is definitely abolished will bo the New South Wales Trotting Olub, which drew about £IO,OOO a year rent for the nee of its track. *