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IN ABLE DEFENSE OF RACING. W. A, Pinkerton Denies that the Sport Makes Criminals, and He Knows. New Orleans, La., December 23. William Pinker-ton, while here last week in connection with the business of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, said that New Orleans plainly showed the results of the abolition of racing this winter. "If New Orleans could have had racing this winter it would have been the greatest and biggest meeting iu the history ofthe local turf," said he at the St. Charles last evening. "I believe it was a grievous wrong to pass so drastic a measure, for racing could be regulated very satisfactorily. But it is impossible to kill it. Racing has become too big an industry in America for that. Millions of dollars are invested in stock farms in Kentucky and elsewhere for the breeding of high-grade horses." Mr. Pinkerton only recently came in from a tour of the Pacific coast, during which he visited San Francisco and Los Angeles, and he says that in both cities the racing meetings are larger than they ever were before. But still there are a great many people who would bring their horses to New Orleans when they wouldnt risk the long trip across the continent to the Pacific coast. New Orleans, he says, though business seems fairly good in general lines, looks duller than he has ever before seen it in the winter time. Mr. Pinkerton says that racing could be regulated in such a way as to eliminate the vicious and undesirable features, and yet preserve the sport in all of its purity. One way would be to increase the admittance fee. That would keep out the man who could not afford to pay, and also increase the minimum bet which one could place to such a figure that the privilege of betting could be indulged iu only bv the man of means who can afford to lose. Mr. Pinkerton scouts the idea that tbe race track breeds crime. He says that every year there are far more men who go wrong on the stock exchange than ever have fallen through race betting. His business keeps him in touch with, these conditions all over the country, and he says that there is a percentage of weak men who will be tempted to take what is not theirs, but men who will misappropriate the funds of their employers for one thing will do it just as quickly for another, and if they have not got racing to put the blame on they will say it was some other form of gambling, such as poker playing or craps shooting, or perhaps women, or speculation in stocks, cotton or grain, or any one of the many other commodities gambled in at the commercial exchanges. "No. horse racing Is not the corrupting influence tliat it is held to be," said Mr. Pinkerton. "I know from experience of many things that are worse, and as for criminals following the wake of the races, that Is all nonsense. Just after we established our office here last year we put two men at the local track to co-operate with the police. During the entire season there was only oue robbery at the track, and the man in that case was arrested by our people tho following day and is now in prison. Raee tracks neither breed nor harbor criminals. The fact is that suspicious characters will not be tolerated anywhere around a race course."
