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STORIES OF THE BETTING RING. Barney Schreiber tells some amusing experiences about California betting before he became acclimated, says a San Francisco paper. He went to San Francisco the Midwinter Fair year. There were a great many yellow souvenirs in circulation, and before Barney knew it he was filling his tin box with them. The best story Barney tells on himself is about a couple of bad dollars which were handed to him at the old Bay District track. For days and days he tried to pass them off, but they were too ugly looking to get rid of. Sick of having them around Barney called a piker to him one day, and said: "Here, take these two dollars and do what you like with them. Bet them, throw them away, do anything you wish ; only got them out of my sight." When the cashier was pulling the money out of the cash-box after the next race he found the very same pieces. The piker had come back, made a bet with Barney, paying him with tho very same goods he gave away. It was tho last time Barney tried to disposo of the two pieces. - The story is true. Harry Lewis took in the phony dollars. But Barney went to Frisco the year before that of the Mid-winter Fair. In Frisco, where the gold piece is so prevalent, there was, and still is a rule which compels bookmakers to take bets of .50 at the regular odds. The rule nearly drove eastern operators insane. John ONeill went to Frisco first in 1891 and booked heavily at old Bay District. When he had 13 to 5, 9 to 5, 11 to 5 and other close odds on his board the "natives" would come alon? and ask him for .50 each way on horses against which such prices were quoted. ONeill wouldnt stand it. He used to quarrel with the betters and finally tell them to go somewhere else because he couldnt stand the half dollar game. He never did, either. "It lowers the game and gums up the sheets," ONeill used to say. And then reflectively he would remark to his crew, "Im no barbarian." Another funny incident out of the action of the ring and its people turned up at Windsor, Ont when its track first opened. Harry Froe-lich was booking there, and as soon as betting began on the first race, a Canuck came along and wanted a bat of each way on a horse. In payment be tendered a bill. Such bills are among the regular paper money in Canada. Froelich looked the bill over, handed it back to the better and screamed out: "Not me I Ive been up against all kinds of green goods, but yon cannot bet me cigar box labels, I have a good notion to have you arrested." Later on Froelich learned about Canadian currency and welcomed the cigar box labels.
