AN EFFECTIVE LAW.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 226, 17 June 1908, Page 7

AN EFFECTIVE LAW.

0 GAHBUNG PROHIBITION. BETTINC CASES ON RACECOURSES. KENTUCKY AFFECTED. 8T TELEGRAM —I'RBSS ASSOCIATION —COPYEI3HT. New York, June 15. TJndor the anti-gambling law passed by tho Now York State Legislature, several hundred police prevented racecourse betting at Gravesend, Now York State. No odds were displayed, and tbo rings were virtually doserted. The new law has caused consternation in betting circles, and has seriously affected Kentucky, where a million sterling is invested in .farms for the training and rearing of thoroughbreds. GOVERNOR HUGHES HAS HIS'WAY. According to a recent cabled forecast, Mr. Hughes, Governor of New York State, is not likely to wrest tho Republican Presidential candidacy from Mr. Taft; but that Mr. Hughes is a man not easily thwarted is proved by tho Anti-Gambling Act of the Now York State Legislature. In April a division in tho New York Senate resulted in a tie, thore being twenty-five votes for the Bill and twenty-fivo against; and its defeat was looked on as certain. But, according to a cablegram in Monday's issue, tho Senate, "by tho casting vote of a dying Senator, who was carried into the House, mado gambling on a racecourse punishable by imprisonment." Tho fnrther cablegram in yesterday's issue—to the effect that Mr. Jas. Keene and other leading American sportsmen intend, as a result of the now law, to send their horses to Englandtends to confirm tho following anticipation published by a Home paper "If the Bills are finally passed it is the general belief that they will sound the deathknell of horse-racing in the country, and thai all-leading American breeders and trainers will transport their stables to Great Britain, Without betting, racing men assert, racecourses cannot exist, for the rewards would bo utterly inadequate for the expenditure and risks involved. Governor Hughes has maintained that this is a pitifully weak argument, and that if horse-racing is dependent for its success on betting it deserves to die. An enormous _' boodlo fund' is said to have • been organised by racing men for the purpose of inducing two or three senators to cast their votes against tho Bills. The fund is allegod to amount to .£100,000."