' . By HERBERT ASBURY.
HE Jockey Club does not recog-
l nize betting on the‘ races. an‘d
the laws of the State of New
York_ say "it ain't so." but neverthe-
less many thousands at dollars
change hands every day at Jamaica.
, Belmont Park. Aqueduct or Empire
City. at whichever track the bang-
tails happen“ to be running. Race
{rack betting around New York city
is by, long odds the biggest business
in the United States that is operated
exclusively on credit without col-
lateral-45 ls the despair of the cynic
and a tribute to the latent honesty
. of mankind and his theory 'that 8.
WI gambling debt is a debt of honor.
Despite the huge amounts involved
and the fact that sometimes a. payoff
separates n bettor from his last
nickel, there is. comparatively speak-
ing. no welching. The percentage is
so small as to be virtually negligible.
It is not possible. of course, to esti—
mate exactly the amount of money
that is wagered on the races every
day at the New York tracks. Book-
makers are not very communicative
about the intimate details of their
business, which at best is on the
shady side of the law. But it is likely
that bciwccn $200,000 and $300,000 is
bet every day at Belmont, Sai‘iitogn
or Aqueduct. and perhaps a some-
what smaller amount at Jamaica. and
Empire City, those last named
plants are small and do not attract
“S
the large opvmtors. ’l‘hisis not my
estimate, hmn-vcr; it is the estimate
of a man who has followed the races
for thirty yours. He has owned
hul‘st‘s, trained horses, made book
on the race-s and played them for
a ll\'lll£.". Right now he is broke.
“Sometimes even these amounts
are exceeded" said this man. "I have
seen days at Belmont and Aqueduct
and Samtogn when the hi: stakes
were being run and every horse had
a chance and the owners Were Mick-
ing them liberally when at least half
a million dollars was wagered. Often
the big men but as high as $50,000
and $100,000 at a crack. And curi-
ously enough these men, some of
them Worth millions, arc sometimes
morn ditlicult to collect from than the
pikcrs Who make the two and five
do":ir bets.
“it never seems to occur to them
that the bot-ltnmkcr who wins their
money might need it the next day
to p'ly off his ou'n losses; often they
delay for weeks before they send a
check. Thcy lll‘i‘ perfectly good for
any amount they want to bet; thcy
just don't think about lt~flnil like
as not a. few days is enough to ruin
a. bookmaker."
Some of the largest bookmakers
handle as hiizh as $75,000 and 3l00,~
000 in a. day‘s betting operations, and
tin-y figure on collecting from 70 to
75 per cent. of their winnings within
a day or two. Most of it is collected
the next morning. whcn they also
pay off the men who have picked the
right horses. From 25 to 30 per cent.
the bookmaker figures as bad debts,
collectible ultimately but not imme-
diately, and of these bad debts he
must count on losing from 2 to 5
per cent. through actual welching. so
that out 0; the $100,000 bet the
1
Betting
Thousandeofao’oilersn 5
amount withheld by welchers runs business house. Lose a bet on to‘ finite your ticket." --You hand thk‘ that would ruin him if the horse
from 83.00010 $5.000.
~Perhaps the percentage may be
more this year. because the bad
weather and the coughing sickness
which struck so many stables in the
spring made form a mockery. and the
players have been hard hit all sea-‘
son. But the bookmaker dare not
welch. If he does the Jockey Club
day's races to one of these. to-mor—
‘ row morning you get a. statement
saying exactly how much you owe,
although the statement is not item-
ized. Win a bet on to—day's races
and to-morrow morning you get a
check. ,
Betting on \the ram is perhaps
the only business'in which a stran-
tlcket to the bookmaker or to his
runner and “that's all there is to it.
Excepting that if you (her find a
bookmaker crazy enough to give you
’ fifteen to one on Exterminator lay
more than five dollars on would war
horse.
sees—which means go the limit.
Some- of the larger bookmakers.
Sink the ship. as the saying‘
should win. , In this case he must lay
off some of it; that is, he must send
his runners around to other book-
makers and bet cement the Qmone'y
with them and thus reduce the
amount, for which he Will be re- '
sponstble to a point where he can
stand" a loss. And he must do_' this
in time, it possible, to get as good
C U~ Z
WWW/l” A; WWW/77m
stewards begin to take an interest in
his affairs, and he learns that in his
particular case the detectives do not
find it as difficult as usual to get evi~
dcncc of bookmaking.
The bookmaker probably does not
lose as large a percentage 6! the
mom-y bet with him as the owner of
a. big department store does of the
money spent in his place. Of course
the department store man ‘can sue to
collect a debt and the bookmaker
cannot. A bookmaker must have a
larger cash capital than many of the
very large commercial and industrial
houses. He cannot pay off with
promissory notcs, nor 'even with
stocks and bonds. lie deals in green-
backs and gold pieces and checks.
Some of the bookmakers pay off in
envelopes filled with money. Many,
however, especially the larger ones,
have a regular staff of clerks and
runners. and send their customers
regular statements like any other
EMA/Vfizffii
ger, with no other recommendation
than a letter from another man. fund
with no questions asked. negotiates
a deal involving several thousand
dollars with the certainty that he
will be paid it he wins. One walks
up to a bookmaker and says:
“I've got a note from Bill Jones."
He presents the note. The book-
maker reads. hands it to a runner to
Save for the address book and says:
"All right. Mr. Smith; anything
you want."
"What's Exterminator?’ asks Mr.
Smith.
“Exterminator, fifteen, four and
one,” says the bookmaker, meaning
that he will bet you fifteen to one
that Exterminator does not win. four
to one that he does not finish second
and even money that he does not
finish third. You decide to play
Exterminator across the boards. that
is, first. second and third. and you
who take small beta of five and ten
dollars merely to accommodate their
friends. do not like to have the odds
written down. They like to have
the ticket read “Exterminator, 85
straight." or place or show. which-
ever way the better wants to lay his
money. Then the bookmaker. whose
mind is dealing in figures many
times fives and tens, does not have
to look to see if the odds are correct.
He can shove the ticket into his
wallet or his pocket and forget it.
and )heu' payiot‘f according to” the
odds printed in the form. charts. All
handbook betting away treat the
tracks is done that way, blind.
though there may be a few men
away from‘the track who write the
prices. _
The bookmaker must keep his eyes
open and his ears open and his brain
clear unless he wants to go broke.
.At any moment he may get, a bet
‘ a -
e‘égx QV/IH/W/W/I’M7fl//N/7”'7fl/W «Hz/”7
odds as he gave. This is often dim-
cult. since once the word is passed
of a large commission placed on a
certain horse the“ odds on that horse
take an immediate drop.
A bookmaker who has been operat-
ing at the New York {racks ever
since racing was restored said the _
other day that this has been the
best year he has kn’bwn. because. as
has been said. the coughing sickness
and the bad weather have shot form
all to pieces and the form players
are running around in forlorn little
circles. reduced to playing tips and
hunches. Also for this reason there
has been perhaps little more welsh-,
ing than ever before: but even at
that the percentage is remarkably
small. Men who welsh are soon
spotted, ,and they find it impossible
to, lay a bet. although they work in
gangs and they have many systems
'away from'us if they can."
“ it a. "Tm ,
by which they can fleece the honest
bookmaker. ’
The odds offered by the bookmako
are this year seem .to be much
smaller than —they ever have been”
before, probably because the book-
'makers are saying to themselves:
"We'Ye got 'em new, what'with the
y mud and the‘sickness. let ’em get it»
It. is
never possible to get the odds from a
bookmaker that 0931 be obtained on
the .mutuei machines; horses win at
Jamaica and Belmont and Aqueduct
at. even moneyrand then win up in
Canada or down in Kentucky and
pay bigodds in the machines. But
with the mutueis there is no human
element at work; the odds are de-
termined by the number of tickets
sold and not on the whim of a. book-
waiter.
In mutuel betting all of the money
bet to Win is pooled, a. percentage
taken out for the track and for
breakage. and the rest divided by the
number of tickets sold. For place
and show the remaimIEr is divided
into two and three parts, each part
divided by the number of tickets sold
on the winning horse. The horse
that wins the race also wins the
' piaCe and show beta. the horse that
finishes second wins the show bet
also. and the horse that finishes
third wins only the show bet.
Say that Bill Jones wins the race,
Bill Smith finished second and Bill
Johnson ’flnishes third. Two thou-
sand place tickets have been sold at
$2 each, a total of $4,000.
That is what the racing writers
mean when they say a. horse was
backed down, say from 15 to I to 8
to 1. The morning line, the grape—
vine which goes forth among ‘the
bookmakers before noon with the
opening odds, based on "past per-
formances, stable inforfnation and
all sorts of things which might af-
fect the race. sets the opening odds.
Say that Morvich was quoted at 5
to 1 on the morning line. If there
in no play on him the price goes up,
' until it may be possible to get as
high as 8 and 10 to 1 on a horse
that was 3 and 4 before the day
opened. But if money begins to
pour in on Morvlch his price goes
down. He is quoted at 4 to 1. then
at 3 and then 2 and down to even.
and sometimes horses go from 8 and
10 to 1 to odds on.
Some of the biggest bettors wait
until the last minute to lay their
commissions, because if there has
not been much play on the horse,
and lfvthe information on which they
intend betting does not leak out, the
horse is sure to advance in price
and they can get good odds. Con-
trary to the general belief, that is
the general belief among people who
know nothing about horse racing
“and who believe there is no betting,
it is not the long shots winning that
hurt the bookmaker. He loses most
when the favorites win, and when
six favorites go over in a row he has
.had as bad a day as it is possible
for him to have.
Theilongest Odds in
" t
have been obtained [uh-f8 co
Dan.
In of betting which ,
bookmaker “may,
race track I l m ,
Other.
“11217)
mutuels, a, syste
bet against each
pay off in
mutuel machines, whic
the Maryland, Kentuclfytdwu
dian tracks and are probab‘
only fair system of betting .y the
Wishing Ring at Latonla '
17, 1912. For each 32 tic:n June
at the machines Wishing met SOL:
$1,885.50 straight. $644.60 RE Bald
$172.60 show. This was “place and
of more than 900 to 1 for the
or fix“ more than 300 to 1
0nd and more than to 1 t' to.— 56C-
Before that the record w or mint 1
off on Mmtta "- L‘s-sin a the pay
7, 1910, when 32 tickes‘ 021sz
$830.70 straight The mEm
311%
off on a $5 tickm was on men?“-
at Jerome Park in Upton... 1., :3
when ' such a 1; .art paidd'nfi‘g
straight.
Place bets :. -
and on Bill >‘..
place tickets
and 400 an Bi ‘
cent. of thr- .,
commission—4t,
tracks—~and ting
the number of
Jones and 15“»
dollars lxy in
makes SIS "l.
the $3,800.
division. Divide,- 5.
half by 500 7:2in
making respm
Add to car-h of
paid for
place for Bil: J .. r.
for Bill Smith.
The lonmst ”col;
othere is recoil 3::
to 1 on Peyton
23, 15M. and v r‘
land. Cal,
shortest 0.3.?
not: on Bill Jones
Say that 530
«,vs
. Bill 133.15
’ C 5 pg;-
as the tracks
4' ~t a: exam.
the "'
or: 1‘.
R. Keene in the Latvr .. 9
Realization St.~.k~s a: Sheepshtuii
Bay in 1910, and. :hree times on t:
Wonder horse, Man 0' War, once .2:
Jamaica and twice at Belmont.
The bookmaker is not the hats:
harpie that many people believe his;
to be. 02 course he expects not:
pay if you lose,-just as you expect
him to pay if you win, but mars:
times the bookmaker has kept a man
from plunging, through excitement
and a. frenzied desire to recoup his
losses on long shots. I have heard
bookmakers tell bettors that they
Were overdoing it; that they were
betting foolishly, and many of these
men Were well able to pay anything
they lost.
In the long run very few people
beat the races but the bookmakers;
the percentage against the player is
terrific, particularly 11:. Oral betting.
I know one man, a waiter, who Is
called Oscar because his name is
something else, who ran a. $10 bill
into $8,000 one day at Jamaica. and
bought a bqprding house the next
day. He has beaten the race: be-
cause he put the boarding house in
his wife's name. Otherwise thebook-
makers probably would have won it
back.
L4.
HE War of the Roses is on
again! The French Riviera,
ever of its flower
cultures, is clashing arms over the
in Old World
fiower markets and demanding pro-
tection for an industry already con<
eiderably more than a. lusty infant,
indeed almost as full grown as any
industry of the soil ever gets to be.
But leaving wars and rumors of
wars apart and turning to the Italian
page of the book of the rose. a new
chapter of horticultural history is
here set forth. It so interested an
American large scale fiowe; grower
that he gave the palm to the Italian
;. Mediterranean coast as the world's
most prolific open air, all the year
round garden of hardy roses. Here.
then. the lover of nature's master-
' pieces finds much to admire, hitherto
unsuspected. or passed over in a
restless desire to rush from one well
advertised resort to another.
It is but a. step across an imag-
inary dividing line which separates
the French and Italian Rivieras
eastward, following the rugged Med-
iterranean coast line as it suuggles
fl . close under the foothills of the
1-“ Maritime Alps, which here stretch
\ > their forefoot to the very edge of
, the eternal blue, with here and there
.-: narrow lateral strips of a peculiar
, . knoll susceptible of intensive open air
30w «cultivation such as is to be found
._ :5,“ ,7 nowhere else on this green footstooi.
m1 . ~ j__1'|.e Famed Rose»
,1me Is not generally conceded to
.3. be, the land of the rose. but the fact
’ is the yellow roses of Rome and Fras-
catl and. Tlvoll are famous, Capri's
N ‘ climber! snd the trailers or Sorrento
are not less to be remarked. once
you think of it: roses are even seen
In profusion. at least they may be
been. in the walled gardens overhang-
ing Venetian canals. while the rose
5" garden of Florence pale even the
' ' , mun-on lily of its armorial bearings.
In the nth "agree we found'the
'upocious yeti . Italian rose at its
best in that open air hothouse that
In! between the French frontier and
‘ m Maurizio on the Riviera di
Patents. In Bottlighera, Ospedaletti
“and San Reno and all that lies be-
. ‘ em they garland themselves into a
medley of chromatic protusion on all
1m but the yellow tea rose varlew
We.“
Jealous
Italian competition
4.....- -\..-
The business of rose gardening and
marketing along the Italian coast of
blue is a very serious business.
though not at all a conventionally
conducted occupation. All connected
with it goes, or is carried on, with
an alicgra quite as characteristic of
the Italian spirit of things as Italian
music, which is to say that senti-
mcnt plays a considerable part as
well as a warm pace.
By a long, winding mountain road,
just across the Pont St. Louis, at
the great white triangle whichmarks
the boundary between France and
Italy, one arrives abruptly at the
Riviera di Ponente at Ventimiglia. its
western termin s. The bordering
fields are by no means ordinarily
and banally bucolic, but fields of
carnations, violets. hyacinths and
roses surrounding plcturesquely
blue, white or rose ~ tinted stone
farmhouses and groups of waving,
shaggy palms.
Bordlghera is the first town of
magnitude on this magic coast, where
the culture of the rose rises to the
height and dignity of a business of
magnitude.
little place for rose lovers and gar-
den worshipers. Half a dozen big
hotels are set about in the mountain
background in their own parks or
gnarled old olive trees and rose
draped pergolas. a landscape charac-
teristically and consistently Italian.
The town lying at their feet is hardly
more than a. collection of old farms,
now converted gardens. once hillside
vineyards. .
As the Italians of this Ligurlan
coast came to the realization that
growing roses for a livelihood led to
'more butter on their spinach than
did the making of wine, for which
there was little market abroad, they
rooted up their vineyards and planted
lovely golden tea. roses in their place.
One wanders at pleasure between
crumbly old stone walls, overshad-
cured with tall palms with feathery
fronds, for Bordlghera is celebrated
also for its ornamental palms, a m.
tic in which is carried on all over
the world, a, consortium of the faith-
fui o: Bordighera even having the
concession for furnishing SC‘Petex-‘I
with its Palm Sunday branches.
Amid piles of slender bamboo—like
canes are groups or happy children
assiduously splitting the shoots into
strips-with clumsy instruments for
the making into basket- ln which the
_tl'esh nowa- products of the region
. are shipped tau-alien. Crude new
The town is a restful ,
“The War of the Roses”
McManus, With Drawings by the Author.
By Blanche
baskets are thus made by hundreds
and hundreds of thousands, at a cost
so small that “case and cartage" is
an item in the bill which is confined
to the latter. . ‘
The big centralized wholesale
flower market is at Ventimiglia for
the entire district, usually only re-
membered as an unlovely care in-
ternationalc where one changes cars
and watches unhandy customs em-
ployees go through boxes and bags
with little regard for propriety or
politeness.
The market is held on the piazza.
before the railway station. Here
roses. vying in bulk with carnations.
are stacked in their great baskets
as they are brought from the flower
farms for miles around, unloaded”
from the roots of lumbering old
stages. luterspersing more modern
convoys of motor trucks; in gayly
painted carts or swung in pannlers
across the backs of tiny donkeys.
All are spread out in the' square.
there to be auctioned oi! to the high-
est bidder in the dusk of the evening" -
or the gloom of an early dawn, to
be '§hlpped immediately on early
morning or night trains to Milan, to
Geneva, to Berlin. to London or to
Paris.
The n-agrance of roses pursues one
along all this coast from a battery
of aligned rose gardens bowel-ed with
'orange trees and myrtles. extending
to San Remo and beyond. , ,
The Italians somehow discovered
that roses like altitude, if it is not
too high, and finding that here they
could grow them without artificial
shelter the year round, seized upon
. the warm slopes around 'Ospedaletflc
Just to the eastward. for their per-
fected methods of rose cultune. It
is for this th this incipient little
resort of the Riviera has
come to'develop rose growing as a
side line, which has indeed surpassed
its trade of catering to winter vis-
itors. ‘
Miles up and down and around the .
rose farmers lovingly and laboriously
terrace their tiny, flower farms
against the. great gray bouldered
mountain drinks at every angle and
level until they actually rise on oc-
casion. above the low scudding
clouds which the mountains in brief
ntervals throw down upon the shores
of the Mediterranean.
These skyscraper rose farms mount
from one terraced plot to another,
separated by meandering-s of ancient
cobble stoned mule paths beneath
the purple trunks of century old
olive trees, leaving vistas here and
there or azure glimpses of the sea
and the pink‘rooftops of Qspedaietfl
tar below. " '
Gayly ~stashed pack mules and
their drivers pick their way up and
down laden with great pauniers of
county picked roses. for. no (wheeled
vehicle could possibly reach these
rose gardens of cloudland. Smiling.
good natured Italian workers. with
their heads bound in bright colored
kerchtef's. carrying on their own
shoulders and Maids baskets or: earth
and fertilizers to enrich these meager
mountain soils. are met at all turn-
ins: going up. Growing roses at Os-
pedaletti is a business of coming and
going in all possible acceptatlon of
the words. ii. I
o,-
{.
~ oth_ er.
Big cement water tanks. or reser—
voirs, dot the hillsides and open
flumes drop down loosely‘from ter-
race to terrace and carry trickling '
streams of irrigation water to the
gardens, the chief drawback to rose
culture hereabouts being that it
often does not rain for months.
Against the background of the
towering Ligurian mountains are
grown the finest‘of the celebrated
orange-yellow and deep purple—pink
noses. the choicest of all Italy. whose
value lies not only in their beauty,
but in their worthiness. their reputa-
-tion being that of roses with stamina,
coming as they do from their open
air forcing grounds. as do so few
spring roses. For this they have
those appreciable lasting qualities
which so endear them to buyers in
far away markets.
In spite of the early, hour or Ospe-
daiettl's rose market it was manl-
festly not to be missed. Just before
dawn our hotel porter rapped us up
with the information that the market
'was on.
Like a purple wall the mountains
rose above us, seemingly sprinkled
with glow warms, the lights'from
scores of lanterns borne by the rose
carriers bringing down'the‘ir blooms
from the hillsides in baskets pemh‘ed
upon their heads—men, women and
children. each caravan illuminating
its-path by. its own lantern. They
might, have been a. nocturnal pil-
grimage to some shrine at medieval-
\lsm rather than a business cohort
earning its livelihood from the soil.
iThe ruse baskets hold from eight
to ten bunches of a. hundred blooms,
and as they arrive on-_the town
sonar-e are lined up rapidly and
, orderly in long rows.
Two civil guards. ceme upon the
‘ scene—flower inspectorstogive them
flan omdal uuHmudmmbnggno-
like cloaks. each carrying a silver
headed cone of authority in one hand
and the inevitable lantern in the
Their business to see
that the market tax of the equivalent
' '93.!“ ceutl '3 basket had been con,
lected. I " 7 . 7 .!.,.a
(1 Sam“ ”on a. m‘ug. .
" 'An,eyes.were fixed upon the big,
illuminated clock which/overlooked
no; market pines On up last min
5:02. the hour or five to New}:
coped woman“ 0 7, p-
m opening «the market?! ti!
blowing o: unrulyhuth- .
’ " “ so am 2!: .
.-r«\
kets were whipped off and the per-
fume of half a million roses rose up
ward from the pavement in the al.-
of a budding morning.
We had expected to see roses in
full bloom; but no, the roses 0: the
Riviera di Ponente are harvested and
marketed while still in the adolescent
stage of budding rosehood, so they
. are hardly more inspiring to gaze
upon than so many prosaic bunches
of radishes, parsnips or carrots. This
in view of much hard, close packing
and long railway Journeying.
It was’amusing to see the nimble
Italian wits at work in the intrig" .e
of bargaining among themselves. a
change from having to do the bar-
gaining yourself, as is invariably the
case with a foreigner in Italy when
you try to do any kind of business is
this sunny clime.
Throughout the Italian '7! '3 the
railway stations have the odor of
tight closed conservatories. In the
height of the flower shipping ceases
onecanhardly gettoorrromthe‘
trains because 0: the 4111pr
masses of flower hampers, which are
hustled forward to the imminent risk
tot one's luggage being left behind.
It is quite true that apart from
tourist travelers flowers are tha
principal product and the most PTO/5‘
itable passengers. Flowers may 110‘
be delayed; the tourist may-117311
take the next train. I: is the 1mm"
myl.
Plants Thaii .
Shine in {the Night.
are a numb“ ‘ wt:
I and flowers which fl“ on '
a phosphorescent list: in the,
dark. .Idnnaeus first noticed thin,
phenomenon in the common mun;
tium. whose flowers seemed to .
to have a faint lrrldeeeenee at am;
Later observations by other! show
that the light- was stronger after,
very sunny days. .Amont other
plants which pouess tints Wax.
property are the marsh my and ,
Malia. The last named W,
a; yam. oii which oozes. out in not;
weather. spreads over a min mes.
over the flowers. and, tom: a upon,
which becomes luminous h the dark-’
cousin: the coal mine-near Dru-i
den’mm Ilpedel dmmvhwbi
exhibits the appearance or »
sum, _, jaw me. ~ .
Norwalk Chronicler