A CURIOUS TRADE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 11, 29 August 1911, Page 8

A CURIOUS TRADE.

A man who was arrested a few nights ago on a seat on the Boulevard Bonne Notm'llo (says the “Daily Lx press's ” Paris correspondent), declared himself to he a respectable citizen, hut he was sleeping in the open air, and his pockets were tilled with little ohlong cards of different colours, which the police recognised as being tickets of the pari-mutuel. They thought that they wore stolen tickets, but on examination by a .Magistrate the man proved that this was not so, and taught the world a new trade. Ho goes to all the races every day, and wanders about picking up the parimutuel tickets which unlucky sportsmen throw away in a rage when winning numbers'have gone up. Ho does not stop to look at them on the racecourse, but picks up all he finds and takes them home, unless, as happens sometimes, he lias no home to go to. Ho sorts them carefully. He has studied the names and numbers oi the winning horses in the day’s races, and it very rarely happens that the ticket for a winner has not been thrown away by accident by somebody. The man has made as much as twenty pounds in one day, ho declares. Sometimes, of course, he has a run of bad luck, and makes nothing for a week, when people have been careful. But on an average ho makes from five to ten pounds every month, and so lias solved the problem of winning at the races without risking anything more than his ticket of admission.