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GERMAN BOOKMAKING PLANS. New York. January 3. There is a movement on foot in Germany to return to the old system of bookmaking on race courses. The agitation comes from the press and suggests the licensing of all members of the craft aiid keeping them under such keen surveillance that business transactions with owners, jockeys and trainers would be almost eliminated. A writer in the Deutscher Sport, a journal which lias taken a leading part in the discussion now being carried on respecting the wavs and means for furthering the interests of the government of racing authorities and the general public, deprecates all idea of a fixed tax being levied on all investments and suggests that a fixed sum should be paid each season by the licensed bookmaker, as in Austra and Hungary. The Belgian system probably will be copied as far as regards the-betting books of the laver of odds, which shall be Issued, duly Initialed, by the respective delegates of racing societies and open to Inspection by the stewards at anv time. It is proposed that with the initialled betting book open to the stewards at any moment twenty licenses should be granted to respectable men. That each license should be issued at an outlay or ,000 that is to say 0 a day for each of the hundred days racing in Germany of importance, and that a further annual sum of ,500 shall lie paid for the opening of any single branch office, whether for betting on home or foreign events, productive probably of an Income Tor the government and societies which may be estimated at over 1914.sh25,000 per annum, without considering the economy presented by all costly control and supervision on the part or tin; authorities.
