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SOME TRUTHS ABOUT BETTING. I After a tour of inspection of the New Orleans tracks and acquaintance with the sport of racing as conducted in New Orleans this winter, Secretary John Boden of the New York Racing Commission, had this comment to make in the Picayune: "I have been able to see enough to warrant mo in the assertion that the local support of racing is almost wholly through the gate receipts. I like the manner in which the betting feature has, been minimized here and Its absolute divorce from the jockey clubs and their officials. The men whom I have seen betting in the ring to any extent that could be regarded as beyond that of mere amusement, are men whom I have seen in the middle states, in the north and in the east. I know practically all of them ami they are betting here just as I have seen them bet elsewhere. Your local men may bet a little for amusement, but they do not lake the betting ring seriously. I am glad that you have practically made it impossible for women to bet here. Betting by women always has been one of the most serious menaces to racing and you are doing well in getting rid of it altogether. Under existing conditions about all that the betting ring does is to furnish gentlemen who wish to bet on the races with the services of stake holders who hold their money on a moderate percentage. If you had no betting ring at all, these same men would bet with one another, and might, occasionally, suffer through the irresponsibility of the stake holder; as it is they are practically guaranteed against such losses. "As a matter of fact the evils of betting on horse racing are bound to be greatly magnified. If a young man be disposed to separate himself from his patrimony, he will generally find means of doing so without the intervention of a race horse or a bookmaker; but when he has done so, no matter where his money happens to have gone, his friends are fond of laying the blame on the race track. The prodigal sou found means of get- 1 " ting away with his share of his fathers estate before bvokniaking was invented, and without the temptation oT horse racing, and, therefore, the truth was told concerning his dissipation with, what might bo termed, brutal frankness. Had he lived today his friends would have given out that he lost his money on the turf, because it sounds vastly cleaner and more reputable to associate a profligate with the sport with which kings and emperors and the great men of more than two centuries have been identified, than to tell the plain truth, as it was told about the prodigal son. The young man who goes wrong today is made, by his friends, a quasi aristocrat because he lost his money as they say through devotion to the sport with which such prominent aud reputable gentlemen as the late W. C. Whitney, Mr. August Belmont, Mr. James R. Kcene, , the Messrs. Sanford, Major McDowell and hundreds of other gentlemen of the highest social aud business standing have been connected."
