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, ! . » = = s of s e d ! N • K g , ■e is ti i- t" ;o .. ,i- d v g g t i 1. »1 i. d is THE GREATNESS OF FRENCH RACING. tl " if What would you thiuk of President Tafls being obliged to preside at a horse race? j,, President Fallieres of France must leud his official presence to four horse races oath year, the c» Presidents Prize in April, the City of Paris Prize o in October, the Great Steeplechase, and the Grand M Prize in June. Where the President presides come cabinet officers, j, legislators, diplomats. great agriculturists and a wealthy business men. clubmen, ladies of society, theatrical and professional heautics gowned gratis, : like sample doll-, by world unowned dressmakers. all to honor French horse breeding -and Paris com- p merce: j The races are run by the Jockey Club, the most ] exclusive and aristocratic club in France. The gov- ., emmem itself receives all betting money and dis- g tributes it among the winners. A young St. Louis man is an enthusiastic racing -man in Parts. At homo he helped to stop the sport. "We are bound to shut off racing for a time in most American cities," he explains. ••The gamblers -got possession. First they bought the horses, then q the jockeys, then the bookmakers, and then the racetracks. The same thing would happen in Paris -but for governmental, social and strong outside busi ness Influences!* He is right. The Preach government was forced to turn bookmaker. All the evils developed by rac- i iug in America threatened Paris racing. Cusahlaa- ■ tions of bookmakers were owning buses: and the larentor of parts-mutnela had opened a palatial poolroom in the center of the Boulevard. Then came the fallen- Goblet circular that stopped all betting and put a Paris season to the bad. Merely apeteacnlai ■ racing could not maintain itself. The attendance I fell off. The great agriculturists protested. Sporting Park I i languished. The spring season was dull. Fashion went early to the resorts. The summer season was dead. The wealthy tourists stayed not. Paris lus ury had DO triumph in a Grand Prix gone on strike. I Then Paris commerce made its voice heard. Paris commerce is al! syndicated. I refer to proprietors, not workmen. The powerful syndicates of dress-1 makers, milliners, lingerie and lacemakers. the united department stores, jewellers, art dealers, 1 Corse tiaakera, cab companies, theaters, music halls • and associated cales. restaurant- and hotels spoke 1 with ii i uncertain voice: "Bring back real racing!" The solution was simple. In the name of Parisian prosperity the French government purified the races by becoming universal bookmaker. In Paris it is not so much young clerks who go wrong by betting: their sweethearts are against all , money wasting vice and claim the Sunday and the surplus. It is the good father and dear, patient " mother who go out and lose the rent money on Mon- day. Tuesday and Wednesday. They must get to the track to gamble, and a thou sand cheap omnibuses take them. The palliation of the evil is to put dowu betting outside the racetrack. Otherwise the entire lower middle class would go broke. To this end a secret service army hunts down big combinations of clandestine bookmakers without books, who just pay pari-mutuel prices, pocketing i without expense or calculation the governmental 8 per cent rakeoff. Here morality and public interest • work together. Why J Because all that clandestine I rakeoff is deflected from governmental charities, hygiene, agricultural prises and the expenses of the race societies that make for Parisian prosperity. What are the-e paiis-mutuds which the govern- im nt administers: Long before the crisis mentioned the liookiuakers with their only certain capital of a big advertising umbrella, failed to meet the growing needs of the democracy. Up there rose a genius. Joseph Oiler, tlic inventor of the pari-mutuel. at first called the totalizer a gnat booth hauled to the track, having numerous dials to indicate the number of tlat bets put mi each horse. When the race was run they totalized the dollar bets on all losers and divided them among the total dollar liets upon the winners, less id per cent for M. Oilers pocket. The democracy had confidence in the idea. M. Oilers sin cess was so vast that he lost his head. In the Boulevard des Italiens lie set up the great Agence Oiler, where anybody, the young clerk, and in particular the middle aged trusted employee, could put his dollar or his hundred dollars on a horse while passing on his way to lunch. It was too much. | "We cant have public gambling in mid-Paris," was the general sentiment: and the judicial authorities promptly declared M. Oilers vast plant a game of chance not onlv in town but out on the track as well. It was a he-ivy blow to democratic gambling. The bookmaker-, risking B0 expensive apparatus, came hnk and were tolerated ten years: but democracy doesut like to trust its cash to an unknown man with an umbrella, and at last bookniaking welshing scandals brought about the Goblet circular in l**s7. At one fell swixip all b lokmaking was thus prohibited on all Parisian tracks. First there were track-side riots. Then attendance at the races fell off alarmingly; sporting iaris Ian guished; tourists stayed not. as already stated; and Iaris commerce, joining with the race societies. horse breeding and agricultural syndicates, forced the government to re establish mutual betting. Note that bookniaking had already reformed itself. When the storm came, the more honorable of the corporation formed the club that still has its place on the boulevard below the Madeleine. The bookmakers became gentlemen. No money passed upon the track. There was no betting riug. nor Is theie now. The bookmakers just lounged at ease in certain parts of each suburban paddock, taking bets by nods and fingers from sports they could tntst. At night tin- higher class bookmakers and sports still meet at that boulevard club and settle. Of course this sort of thing could not revive pros-la porky. The papule bet his dollar on honor and settle up downtown at midnight? Not much, said populo, and the bookmaker quite agreed with him. Yet this same Paris populace was both anxious and able to bet more cash than the united rich. The democratic "pelouse" entrance price is 40 cent-, the sw.-ii ••pessage" for men and for women, vet even at an ultra fashionable event like the Grand Steeplechase the cheap entrance receipts ran up to nine times the other. Also the 40-cent pe.ple bet a total of twice the pari-mutuel stakes of the fashionables. This i- a- it should be. The cheap public, by Its Bamberg, is the true Parisian milch cow, and on ordinary race days receipts from this source are triple those of the more fashion! Mr side, with its deadheads, owners and club members. And in those days, when betting was the appanage of a few nod and linger sports, the paying fashionable side re celpta likewise bad fallen off lameutably. For Parisian prosperity they called back M. Oiler. He was ready with a new invention called the count hag ticket, a good tiling for bini. because today the privilege of making it is all that he has left. With the counting ticket mutual betting could expand to the needs of Parisian dcaaocracy. Also t!i- vast in. ib of money spending tourist-, who had no acquaintance with whom to bet on parole and nine tenth- of the fashionables. Whose parole was no good -found that the pari niutuels filled a long felt want. Paris mutnela aoat mean iaris mutuals. "Pari" is "bet." "miituel " is "mutual"--mutual bet; but tin s" lagged to each for plural makes "pariS" Im-i - • look like the name of the town. These counting tickets by ingenious order nurn ben show at a glance the race, the horse and number of unit bets sold by the booth up to your tickets issue tl the horse you bet on. observe the block- of tickets packed against the wall of each pari mutuel booth. Each bbCk stands for a horse in the next race. The big number cx- posed on each ticket shows how many ticket! have been sold up to it on its horse. As they are always the -anie unit the bettor gets an average idea from i ue booth of what hi- horse will par/. He has but to imagine be has won and divide up the total units by rhe big number on the ticket he would buy. Bo when the race is won a glance permits clerks to pay off within, say. two minute-. A runner -im ply takes ih total- to the central and the price guea back t" every paying booth, In the nr-t ai. lsss. the paris mutuels held 100.000,000 francs of stakes. M. oiler, whose cotn-iii!-- ion u.i- red iced to s per cent. I Bus pocketed s.iiihi ihmi francs, less what he had to five back to the race -mil ti,-. But tiny were glad to have his system and were tender with him. nine again it was too good. Pour M. OUer! He who built the Moulin Rouge and BtUI lints it out I., anyone wh" want- to tr -and lost it! The father of the Jailin d Pan-, the Ca-ino. the olvnipii. uhnh be rents i,, Maiiii.lli. and tin- Boehecbouart ■wimmlng baths, alwaya erred by doing I Blags too weii: in 18BI the French Parliament, edified by tiie perfectly correct functioning ..f hi- paris-aau- tiil-. complimented M. Oiler, authorized all rate societies to u-. hi- s.v -teui and then coolly took It away from bin! Yes. tie French state authorised the svsteni on condition that it Should handle and di-ttibute all the inon v. Whit the piotiis were last fear y-u can see for yourself. They were s pat cent ..n 284.432,770 i franc-, tin- : ual sum risked In the paris-mutliels around Pari- composed a- follows: Longchamps. 82.24Ti.040 francs; Chaatlllr. lo.-PJ". Mo francs: Aateuil, 74.CS1.345 francs; st. Cloud. ::."..!.". 1.1 -»:■ fran.-: in. iiiih -. 11.217.700 franc-- Si linen. 32..14S.QAA lian.-: Mslaons Lailin.-. ;:s.us: ii,u i francs; Rugbies. 12.703,489 francs, and a- Tn mblav IU.740.980 Hams, Bight per cent the 1ienih -t .it e raked off last year from almost 300,000.000 train-. Fire millions of dollar- it took from tin pockets of Parisians only. not all France, just Paris as pay jnst for boldiu; tl " if j,, c» o M j, a : p j ] ., g Iheir stakes ten minutes. And this is the mere rakeoff. not the losses of Parisians. Ask a gambler he counts the percentage In bis losses. What does the French state do with the great sums wrung from racetrack betting around Paris; Much is -aid of charity and hygiene: and it is of course so much gained. Well, charity gets 2 per cent 6,000,000 franca; hygiene. 1 per cent 3.000. 00O francs i : 1 per cent goes to agricultural prizes, aud 4 per cent 12.fMXl.000 francs is handed ovpr to the race aoeJetiea whose tracks just outside Paris produce the money, for their prizes, expenses, profits and their settlement with M. Oiler. Yes. M. Joseph Oiler has his part still in the. takeoff. He enjoys the right to print the tickets. Coaae to the real horse racing all over the burn ing Longchamps meadows. On Grand Prix day its public was a full half million. Every race day of the I.otigchamps season twenty, forty, sixty, eighty thousand persons pay their 40 cents entrance to It: and when Lonsrchanips closes it is Auteuil. Ulinntilly. St. Oueu, Vincennes, St. Cloud. Maisons Laffitte, Enghien or Le Tromblny. or two or three together, with or without Longchamps. They are racing around Paris all the year except In midwinter. Beery dailr paper has its race service, indicating winners, with reasoned *nt of past performances, of horse and jockey, of stable, owner, trainer, weather, track conditions. Then three special dallies, suited to the under standings of plain sports, smug family sports and gilded spoils. All want a sign. Then two quite extra -iKcial dailie?, tabulating the accumulated data of the others! The true parl-aautuel players are of the solid Paris social fabric, from the working class up to the retired bourgeois. Skilled artisans and factory foremen, engineers and electricians, half skilled work ingnieii rub shoulders with a whole world of small shopkeepers. One week a wife will go out while the husband tends store, and vice versa. Oh. the nightly ca! eolations with the doix- sheet and turf annual. — iaris Correspondent New York Sun.
