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. THE BLUE LAW CRUSADE. The advocates of the Cassidy-Lansing bill in the legislature, to make bookmaklng at horse races a felony, have . taken .a new tack. When they proposed to pass4he law they, knew., .and hoped, that t. would put a stop to horse races altogether; but It bad not occurred to them what it would mean fc the people at large. The vast business of horse racing and training, so attractive and so profitable to the people of the state, did not figure, it seems, in their calculations. They were simply to abolish the whole business in one stroke. As a rule, those who would do this never own horses themselves, have no money invested in fair grounds, stock farms, or feed establishments, or in the harness, or in fact, any other business to be hit by the law. They simply will not patronize horses, fast or slow, and they will not bet, or sport, iu any way, therefore must the law of the state force everybody else into their way of thinking, or at least of acting, no matter what they think. At Albany, however, the advocates of the measure, chiefly the Rev. A. S. Gregg, who would see the whole couty fair business, and nil the pleasure ami profit which it means for other people than himself, perish, rather than suffer a man to bet on a horse race, are now proposing to buy farmers of the state into the approval of the bill. The slate gets annually 00,000 from the racetracks, which It turns over to the county fairs, just as communities used to turn over the excise money to the care of the poor. In this case, however, the money given by the state to fairs helps wonderfully in developing the agricultural interests of the state by encouraging the raising of prize-winning crops on the farms, and by showing cattle and horses, which mean wealth and business for millions. It means, too, the encouragement of the people who spend their lives in meadow and bush-lot to get out of the rut at least once a year and go to the fair, where the progress and successes of the age will be shown to them, not to speak of the stimulation which it gives to the house wives of the state in the holy work of the pantry. So that if ever money made by pool-selling was wisely and well spent, it is this. But the reformers, nothing if not picturesequely practical, now propose to pay this 00,000 to the counties, by increasing the ?50,000 provided in the proposed Moreland bill to that amount,- if the farmers will abandon their immorality In standing by the poolselling law and withdraw their opposition to the fair killing bill altogether. Just here, however, it develops that throughout the state the farmers, encouraged by the attitude of the state for years, have given their money in loans to agricultural societies for the erection of buildings, and that the passage of the bill killing poolselling, which means the death of horse racing all over the state, will mean bankruptcy to those who have thus invested their money. The trutli is that the more the matter is stirred up the more it appears that the devotion to blue law notions ill the state is not so great that if would sacrifice an industry of such vast importance as the breeding of horses and the holding of fairs for the developing of the agricultural interests of the state, to please a few who never go to a fair or a horse race themselves, and are determined that no one else shall be permitted lo go. Having stopped poolselling, with it horse races and county fairs, these good people will probably demand a law compelling all the people of the state to think and believe as they do, or suffer confiscation of their business. It really seems to us that in these days of wholesale corruption iu politics, and in business, energetic reformers might find work to do which will be better, and more fruitful, than that of destroying the county fairs, or of keeping them going .by taking money from tho general fund of the state, iiistead of from the source from which it now comes, with no great damage to life, limb or property, si far as most of the people can tell. Poughkeepsle N. Y. News-Press.
