POOL ROOMS IN AMERICA.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XI, Issue 512, 11 October 1900, Page 15

POOL ROOMS IN AMERICA.

The pool room proprietors at Sacramento have won a partial victors, and they can now by paying a license of 500dol. per quarter, run their rambling houses without being amenable to arrest.' It is a pity this state of things exist in any city and it will only be one more reason for the crank reformers to get closer together and put more energy into their avowed intention of stopping all sports on which wagers are made, The ordinance which closed the pool rooms at Sacramento a few months ago was not passed in any Puritan spirit (says the Breeder and Sports, man). The best element of the city desired to elose the pool rooms, but wished to permit the falling of pools or making books on tracks where actual contests were being held. A friend of the gamblers who was on the Board of Trustees offered an amendment to the ordinance in which race tracks were not excepted from the operations of the law and rather than see the pool rooms remain open, this amendment was accepted and the ordinance passed. Lately an attempt was made to amend the ordinance so that pools could be sold and wagers made on the track of the State Agricultural Society; but this was killed and the ordinance licensing pool rooms passed instead. The Mayor vetoed it, but it was carried over his veto and is now the law in the Capital City. If the pool room proprietors are at all faj? sighted they can “ see their finish,” and it is not so very far away either. The majority of the peop,e will not stand for open gambling houses, and though they may run for awhile a sentiment is certain to be created that will eventually close them so tight that it will be impossible toever open them again. All the wagenng that is necessary to be done can be done on the tracks where the horses race, and the people are pretty unani-

mous in this belief in San Francisco as well as Sac ramento. It need not surprise thedool room proprietors if a State law is passed by the next 1 egislature which they will find it impossible to evade, and the only fear is that the pool room gamblers will arouse so much antagonism before then that he State law makers will want jto stop all racing entirely.