RACE-TRACK GAMBLING.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 227, 18 June 1908, Page 6

RACE-TRACK GAMBLING.

The groat fight whioh has been proceeding for some time past in tho State of New York, in America, over the attempt by Governor Huqiiks and'others to abolish raco-traok gambling, has apparently come to a conclusion. On Monday last our cablegrams reported that the Senate of New .York State, by tho casting vota of a dying Soiiator, who was carried into the House, made gambling on a racecourse punishable by imprisonment. I't is thus made plain that the opponents of this form of gambling have won the day, and the manner in which their object was attained adds just that sensational touch which seema to be inseparable from happenings undor the Stars and Stripes. The battle between tho gamblers and the anti-gamblers had waged fiercely, and all sorts and conditions of men woro found ranking themselves on ono side or the other. The motives of the units of tho factions were probably as diverse as their calling in life, and it will therefore not cause much surprise that among the most prominent opponents of the suggested reform were to be -found even the highest church dignitaries, though it is fair to add that the' opposition of these was based on tho doctrine of expediency, since they merely uj-ged that , the extreme prohibitory measuro was inadvisable.

Current Literature lor April of this year contains ail interesting rcfcrcnco to this great .raws-track gambling war which ha< now terminated. It is there shown that by the Constitution of the New York •State all forms of gambling were prohibited within its boundaries, and that the State Legislature was empowered to pass appropriate laws to prevent offences of the kind. Governor Hughes, tho article says, having sworn to uphold the Constitution, and having found that the legislature had passed no law " to prevent " ppnl-wUing and beekmivking on I'RCO' tracks, sent a recommendation to the log-

islature to pass Buch a law. Then, of course, the trouble began, and floods of rhetoric poured in, " picturesque," to use the writer's own words, " in the case of the bookmaker, satirical in the case of ex-Governor Black, passionately moral on the part of many of the clergy." The penal, code of the State, however, did make pool-selling, bookmaking, the receiving of bets, etc., a felony, with the proviso, " except when another penalty is provided by Law." But the legislature in 1895 had so provided another penalty, for race-track gambling specially, in the recovery by civil action against the person with whom tho wagor was made. This, in operation, was, of course, no penalty at all, and a mere subterfuge. Then a strong partisan in favour of the race-track gambling was crcatcd in the shape of the agricultural societies, who, by pre-concerted arrangement, received 5 per cent, of tho admission fees to the track. Directly, therefore, this year's Bills, known as tho Agnew Senate Bills and the Hart Assembly Bills, were introduced to prohibit gambling on the track, coupled with a Bill providing for a direct appropriation by the State to the'agricultural societies of a sum much less than resulted from the 5 per cent, on admission fees during the racing season, half tho county fair associations opposed the Bills. '

However, the anti-gamblers have won, and though the defeated party claims that the breed of horses will necessarily deteriorate, bcoause the Sport of Kings will probably languish and die of inanition if concomitant betting is removed, the victors counterclaim that the breed of man will bo much improved thereby, which is a far greater desideratum. Some of the letters received by Governor Hughes in support of his efforts to abolish gambling 011 the race-track arc published, and are both pathetic and instructive in their nature. A public-school master deplores the ruin of his boy scholars by the betting curse; a wife deplores the wasting of her husband's earnings; a polico officer stigmatises race-track gambling " as conducted to-day by a gang of notorious crooks ... a disgrace to the fair name of the glorious State of New York." One immediate effect of the passing of this ar.ti-gambling law was published on Tuesday in the message announcing that M'u. James Keene and other leading American sportsmen are, because of it, sending their racohorses to England. It may be surmised that this threatened intended action is the usual American "bluff." At any rate, if the intention is carried out, it is quite certain that from the British point of view the gentlemen referred, to lack the qualifications of true sportsmen.