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FAVORING BOOKMAKERS IN GERMANY. The campaign in favor of the admission and licensing of bookmakers in Germany, supported by the police; is still being carried on in the German sporting papers. It will relieve those who patronize sport irom that restraint which seems to prevail over every course in France and certainly Increase the number of owners and breeders. A writer in the "Deutseher Sport," u journal which has taken a leading part in the discussion now being carried on resecting the ways and means for furthering the interests of the government, of racing authorities, and the general public, deprecates all idea of a lixed tax being levied on all investments, and suggests that a lixed sum should be paid each season by the licensed bookmaker, as In Austria and Hungary. The Belgian system will probably be copied as far as regards the betting books of the layers of odds, which shall be issued, duly initialled, by the respective delegates of racing societies and open to inspection by the stewards at any time. It is a known fact that the lottery system now in vogue under the name of the "totalizator" covers up ail the finessing of owners, jockeys and those interested in those doubtful transactions which are of too frequent occurrence at the moment. It is therefore proposed that with the initialled betting book open to the stewards at any moment twenty licences should be granted to respectable men, and that each licence should be issued at an outlay of ,000 that is to say 50 a day for each of the hundred days racing in Germany of importance, and that a further annual sum of ,500 shall bo paid for the opening of any single branch office, whether for betting on home or foreign events, productive probably of an income for the government and societies which may be estimated at over 1913.sh25,-000 per annum, without considering the economy presented by all costly control and supervision on the part of the authorities.
