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COMMENT ON EASTERN CONDITIONS. The New York Sun makes the following interesting comment on conditions under which racing is being conducted at Aqueduct: "Casual observers who visited Aqueduct on Friday and Saturdav and had not been to the races since the season of ISI07. when the mmtt was on the top wave of populuritv. were surprised by the existing conditions, they said. Instead of 25.00O spectators anil ::." 0 IxMikniakers openly accepting and recording tasa bets of all kinds, they found not more than 7. H 0 spectators and the bettlM ring closed tight. This attendance, because of the vastness of the Aqueduct enclosure. l x kcd as if a handful of turf followers had come to the track because of the desire to see the horses run and to enjoy a breath of fresh air. It certainly didnt look as if the gambling instinct of former days was the magnet, so the casual observers said, because to outward appearances there was nothing to indicate the old methods of speculation. "There were no bookmakers, so called, and M dis-plav of inouev. The race track detectives refused to i-llow a man to stand in one spot accepting oral wagers from a few friends for more than a minute, no matter how influential he might have been iu days gone by. There was no brazen hawking of odils: in fact, there was no market at all. the effort to discover prices offered by some of the han-dicappers being a difficult task. No cash books or sheets could be seen anywhere, and everylxxly stood up on the dusty lawn — that is. everybody who want-d to whisper an oral bet t» an acquaintance. "I.eadini: price-makers who ruled the open market in the betting ring three years ago dimply looked on from perches in the grandstand. Sol I.ichtenstein w;is among them, and he declared that speculation under the present law had been reduced to a pikers privilege. In the absence of cash and recorded wagers, r.ltllll ■Mulpi nM the business of laying odds, as far as he was concerned, was a thing of the past, for the reason that responsible persons who had money to hot were no longer playing the races. "As the lines were drawn more tightly than ever before, it was quickly learned by the average visitor that the making of a bet was impossible unless credit was established, and as persons who accepted oral wagers refused to do business under any circumstances with Strangers, credit was out of the question. In :l word, it became apparent that the «en-eral public was prohibited from taking part iu the speculation in anv wav. "The track owners, therefore, are emphatic in stating that if the present cotiilitions are not elimi-uatud, rucing will be carried on with au average dailv attendance of 1.500 or 2.0tM» persons who pay the $:; tariff and that a sufficient revenue will be derived to pay expenses — nothing more. They say that investigation bv aiiyliody will prove their as sertion and that the fact cannot fee denied, that betting has been reduced to a minimum, so li|;hi in volume that it is now a matter of confidential transactions among friends. Furthermore, it is not a breach of confidence to quote an owner of one of the leading tracks who said to The Sun man on Saturday: " If thev prevent oral wagers among individual-, every track in New York state will be closed. As it is" we can just alxmt live, but thats all. "
