AN ANTI-BETTING SCARE.

NZ Truth, Issue 168, 5 September 1908, Page 2

AN ANTI-BETTING SCARE.

The following, published m a London sporting paper, throws the Yankee racing man out m a somewhat lurid light :— "The Anti-Betting Bill has /been carried m America by a majority of one. it is not our province to criticise or deal with the Acts of Foreign Parliaments. If the faddist is uppermost, and can carry a majority m distant lands, it is no aftair of ours. We have the same individual at home, and sufficient for us is our own quantity thereof. Nevertheless it behoves us to see how events abroad will affect the racing world m England. This law, if it be not revoked, will have an effect on us and one that we have every reason to dread. If the Yankee cannot race m his own country under all the legitimate conditions of racing, he will go elsewhere—and elsewhere will mean here. We shall haw a repetition of the American invasion which so scandalised the English Tnrf during the Lester ReilY period. It is to be deprecated, but none the less faced, that the grand old sport of kings has a burr upon its back m the shape oJ those racecourse frequenters to AVhom horse is but an instrument upon which any discoid can be played. Sport 15 alien to their nature, greed of gold is the very essence of it. England was a few years ago infested by welshers and card snarp^ ers from America. They were friends and confederates of the doping gang -which was eventually suppressed by the ukast of the jockey club. •'As soon as this ukase was issued and the pet jockey pf th« group had [been seat

back whence he came, then, the game having played itself out, the 'troop' followed, and once more the racecourses of England were freed of persons undesirable m every sense- o[ the word. Now, this resolution of the American House of Representatives may .be the means of sending them ,ba,clv again" across the water. Just as we would readily accord a welcome to men like Mr J. R. Keene and Messrs • -Whitney and Belniont, so earnestly must we ; now take this opportune moment to'souhd. a warning note." . - ' ■