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CURTAILING THE CALCUTTA SWEEP. There comes from India an announcement that will girdle the earth with gloom. In cities and caiups, in bungalows and settlers huts scattered over five continents, men and women will learn with something like consternation that something has happened to the biggest sweepstakes in the world. Owing to the "umtesired publicity" recently given to certain of its enterprises, the Calcutta Turf Club has decided that in future no sweepstakes tickets will be Issued to anyone not a member of the club, nor will the names of non-members be allowed to appear on the books. It may be worth while to explain the situation lying behind this announcement. Tne Derby Sweep organized by the Calcutta Turf Club is a gigantic affair. It has grown enormously within the last decade. Ten years ago, we believe, the first prize was rather over 00,000; this year it was not far short of 50,000, and there were many other prizes running into thousands of pounds. The tickets, ten rupees each .20, were applied for from every quarter of the world. The average European in Indiahe might be a strong opponent of betting at home entered as a matter of course. So did the retired Anglo-Indian civilian or soldier, merchant or planter; the otlicer on a P. and O. steamer, the returned traveler, the strolling player. Mr. Thomas Atkins organized a little private syndicate; the penurious Asiatic ho Uiids the western modes of gambling most enticing took a hundredth part of a share; and at the other end of the scale wealthy firms bought tickets on a wholesale basis, or after the drawing, swooped down upon the lucky holder of the favorite with offers which led him to balance with nerve-racking anxiety the bird in the hand against his fellow in the bush. And all this, as the poet has it, was not a thing of days, but had gone on for years and years, it was, of course, illegal, but everybody understood that high personages in tho Secretariat, and in the police had no particular wish to make It awkward for the Calcutta Turf Club, and tho Indian newspapers could bo rolled upon to maintain a discreet silence. Then, as Ill-luck would have It. a London paper thoughtlessly published the facts to the world, and the Derby Sweep, Instead of doubling in value as the child-like speculator might have expected it to do. straightway collapses, at any rate as an annual event of world-wide interest. An ironical circumstance is that the disclosure should have come about, not through the otlicious meddling of an anti. gambling organ, but through the blameless enter prise of The Daily Telegraph. It would, however, be rash to assume that the declaration" of th changed conditions means the end of the Calcutta Sweepstakes. As most of us arc aware, the re sources of civilization in guch matters arc cot ill ways known to the law. Londou Daily Mall.
