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GOOD RECOMMENDATIONS FOE EACING Ottawa Out January 28 When the hearing on the Miller antibetting bill was resumed before the special committee of 1arllaiuent to which the mat ¬ ter was referred for inquiry Colonel Grasett clilcf constable of the city of Toronto testified that he had ho condemnation for the Woodbine track at Toronto and knew of no evils that he could char ¬ acterize as resultant from it The meetings were largely attended orderly and well conducted special ellorts being made to exclude undesirable characters Ho frequently attended personally and spoke of his own knowledge knowledgeTo To Mr Hauey be said Toronto had had no pool ¬ room for ten or twelve years nor had there been any in tlic neighborhood since that at West Toronto had been closed As a precautionary measure the practice of the police during all large gatherings in Toronto no matter what the occasion was to take suspicious or known improper characters into custody till the gatherings were over overReplying Replying to questions by members of the com ¬ mittee Colonel Jrasett said that the present law overning legal betting on race courses was not sat ¬ isfactory Incause it was neither convenient nor sensible To establish cases of illegal betting in handbooks was difficult for the regular force be ¬ cause evidence of recording bets was required He condemned street betting and tipsters advertise ¬ ments In the end he was inclined to think that it would be unwise to prohibit organized betting on the tracks believing that it would produce a worse rather than a better state of affairs affairsChief Chief of Detectives Carpenter of Montreal was another official witness He said the directors of the Montreal Jockey Club were among the most honor ¬ able and most resected men In the city The meet ¬ ings were satisfactorily conducted at Blue Bonnets uu evils resulted that lie knew of aud he did not believe the prohibition of bookmakiug would be of any advantage advantageTo To Mr Miller he said he knew of troubles result ¬ ing from gambling in other directions but was sure there was no case of embezzlement or defalcation due to anything that occurred on the Blue Bonnets track Montreal has no poolrooms now Two that existed were located in adjoining municipalities which were now annexed to the city and no new legislation was necessary to suppress them themSenator Senator Douglass of Saskatchewan appeared in op ¬ position to letting in connection with racing He admitted that he had been on a race course only once when he was at the Woodbine but he did not see anything there to which he would make siKcitic objection objectionW W 1 Frascr secretary of the Ontario Jockey Club gave evidence as to the sources of revenue of racing associations and the receipts expenditures and prolits of the Ontario Jockey Club in particular The revenue of the club from tins sale of bookmakers licenses and advance information at the Woodbine was last year rr700 The money paid out In prize money was 124 WK Net profit last year was 0 f7S and the surplus of the club now stood at K 784 The total paidup stock was 10000 and on this an annual dividend of ten per cent was paid the balance going to surplus Against the Wood ¬ bine property of the club there is a mortgage of J51500 O Since 107 the Ontario Jockey Club had been dealing direct with the bookmakers in helling advance information as to the entries etc The revenue from this source was about 000 Last vear at the W odbine meetings there were on the average about lifty bookmakers in daily attendance The maximum number doing business was seventy Air Frascr disapproved of all pool and handbook making off the track and of the selling of tips Questioned by Mr Lclghton McCarthy the witness said the club had been in existence for thirty years and was formed with the object of improving the breed of horses There were one hundred shares if stock held by nearly as many prominent lovers of the horse in Ontario OntarioMr Mr Fraser who had also long experience with race meet hiss in England said that the aim of the Ontario Jockey Club was to model the Woodbine meetings on the great English meetings as patron ¬ ized by the late Queen Victoria and King Edward Viceroyalty in Canada had always attended the Toronto meetings As a result of the efforts of the club to encourage the breed of horses many thor ¬ oughbred snids had been imported and the improve ¬ ment in horse breeding in counticx like 1eel Oxford Slmcoe Waterloo Wellington and Wellaml was di rectlv traceable to racing contests at the meetings under the auspices of the club If the betting privileges should be done away with the club could not continue to offer large purses In reply to Chalr 111111 Miller the witness said the clubs revenue from the adoption f the pariinntuel system of betting vouhl probably be increased as compared with the nreseut system
