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" IMPORTANT CANADIAN" "BETTING" DECISION. j"jf ""r "" V v At Toronto three out of live judges of the Court of Appeals have upheld the conviction against J. S. Saunders and others for conducting gaming houses at the Woodbine raqetrack. These three judges have expressed their opinion that betting booths such as have existed at the Woodbine fell within the terms of the section of the criminal code prohibiting gaming houses. In effect the decision is that in future there can be no betting in booths at any racetrack in this country, though no restraint has actually been placed on the act of betting itself. Mr; Justice; Garrow, one of the two dissenting judges, expressed the opinion that tlie object of-the legislature had apparently been to reserve race courses of incorporated associations as places where betting might take place without the participants being subject to any penalty. On this account he thought any move to eliminate such betting had better lie made through the legislature. Chief Justice Meredith thought that theepnviction should be quashed because the defendants were riot the keepers of disorderly houses in the facts as related. The decision will doubtless be taken to the Supreme Court. Concerning the decision the Toronto Globe of -Monday says: "Now that a majority of the Court of Appeals has decided that tlie methods of bookinaking ! in vogue throughout Canada are not legal, the bookmaker will have Jo change his methods or .go out of business. He will probably adopt the former alternative, unless there is an appeal, which will, ; no doubt, be taken, as the court was divided in the opinion given on Saturday. The question of the legality of betting on race courses was not before the court. As Mr. Justice Garrow remarked In his opinion,1 the trend bf legislative movement is all in favor of that. He probably had in mind the bills now in the British Parliament and the legislatures of Victoria and New South Wales, providing for the suppression of street and shop betting. In all of them race courses are exempted, arid Mr. Herbert Gladstone, the British Home Secretary, has stated that is the policy of the "" n bill in England." 1 - -
