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NEW AGNEW BILL FEEBLE JOKE. Opinion General Among Lawyers that It Will Be Held to Be Unconstitutional. New York. April l."i. — The Agnew bill prohibiting the publication of odds on racing is being treated as a joke by the legislature. In that mood the senate passed it. In debating the bill. Senator Mcfarren said: ,"If we are going to keep from the newspapers everything which might incite a weak mind to commit a crime, we would have our hands full. It is absurd. It is beneath the law-making senate to attempt to put on the statute books a bill which I think every good lawyer here holds is not worth the paper it is written on." Opponents of the bill claim that it will be vetoed on the ground of its unconstitutionality, and District Attorney Jerome, who was present during the debate, said that the bill was certainly "dangerously near" the line, and that the courts would probably have to pass on ii b-fore it could be enforced. The measure is purely a senate bill and has not been to the assembly yet. In the assembly it goes to the Rules Committee, of wliieh Speaker Wadswortli. whose father is a inenilH-r of the State Racing Commission, is chairman. The Sun. iu reisirting the debate, declares that it was made plain that the legislators were passing the bill to get even willi the newspaiMTs which last year siippoi ted tile anti race track gambling hills. It was the idea that if this racing information could not be published, it would affect file newspapers financially.
