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FRANCES LATEST BETTING PROBLEM. Parts, April 8. — A new phase of the betting proh l-m has come up in France. Some eighteen years ago tin- goermnent discovered that betting on hots, laces was immoral and forbade it by law. It was immediately found that without betting noliody went to the races and horse breeding, an important matter in a country that needs cavalry, began to suffer. So the paii-miHuels system was introduced and the government received a percentage of all mnnev wagered to spend on public works. Bookmakers wire thus eliminated, as a paragraph or the law said that -whoever shall in auv place or form practice betting by offering bets to all .oiiiers" shall I*- liable to certain severe penal tie* This law was intended to make it possible for two individuals to make a bet together. War was waged successfully on professional bookmakers and their business was piacUcally killed, but duriuij the lavt two or three years it has revived. Prosecutions for hitting have failed, the bookmakers pleading that they did not accept them from "all comers," but only from people they knew personally. The failure of two or three test cases of this kind so encouraged liookinaking that the government found that last year its percentage from the parl-nmtiiels was ts5.000.000 less than in 1907 ami that for the first three months of this year the deficit is nearly tl.3OO.O0O as compared with 190S. If. Ruau. minister for agriculture, has therefore drawn up a new regulation, which is practically certain to become law. in which he has eliminated the words "to all coiners" and which reads: "Whoever shall have habitually, in any place or form, offered, given or received bets on horse races shall be liable to the penalties of article 4H of the penal cihIc." The penalties are imprisonment for at least two or at most six months, with a line from 0 to .2 hi. The lawyers are now looking forward to test cases on the meaning of "habitually."
