NEWS BY MAIL.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 July 1927, Page 4

NEWS BY MAIL.

•• TOUTS’ ” NEW LIFE. DUPLIN. May 30. Recognising that in a country of sportsmen and .sportswomen betting cannot lie suppressed, the Irish Free Slate Government has in five months made something like CIOO.UOO by regulating it. If the British Government had adopted the Irish experiment of readymoney betting offices, the .State, in the same period, would have benefited to the extent of at least .€2.000.000.

That is the view of a high official in the finance department of the Free State Government, who also pointed out that by its attempts to suppress street betting the State pays tor its own failure to wipe out what it regards as a conventional sin. FEWER EMPTY SHOPS.

Not only does the Free State Exchequer benefit from the taxes and licence-fees derived from the cash betting office hut the rates in Dublin are relieved, for scores of shops left vacant hv the trade depression which followed the exodus of moneyed people after the signing of the Treaty have now been taken by bookmakers, who have deserted the side streets for the re organised office. Also, the ready-money betting experiment has improved the social standards of hundreds of young men who, instead of living a street-corner file ns runners, touts and scouts, are now employed its counter clerks and telephone operators. The big bookmakers of Dublin, like tlie.ir brethren in Britain, protest against the o percent betting tax. and while the bookmaker is tearfully contemplating ruin the punter is raising his voice in anger against the Sltylocks of the ring. “The tax is too high,” says the hookmaker, who points to the small attendance at Irish race meetings, some of which. lie declares, will have to he closed down unless his burden is lightened. PRIEST STUDIES FORAI.

In self-defence the big bookmakers have opened readv-money offices, both in high-class and poor localities ; hut what thev get. over the counter cannot he compared with the huge sums once accepted on the nod in the betting rings.

To-day I accompanied a well-known Dublin merchant into a high-class betting office. In one cornel' an elderly village priest was studying form oblivions of his surroundings, and seated in chairs several young women were biting pencils after the manner of women and exchanging superstitions. Overhearing their conversation, I concluded that the average woman is influenced first by the jockey and next by the name of the horse. The ready-money bettings offices of Dublin have become a social as well as a national instituion, for at the betting counter somehodv meets everybody.

A RESCUE STOPPED. PARIS, May 30. Little Eliso Riot, aged 12. (laughter of a. Grenoble manufacturer, was playing with her two brothers on the banks of the Isere yesterday when she fell into the water and was carried away by the current. Her father plunged in to her rescue hut was seized with cramp and ilianatted with difficulty to reach the hank, when lie immediately rushed to his villa- and released his retriever. The dog was on the point of jumping into the river to the child’s rescue when it was seized by a dog-catcher, who was accompanied by a policeman on the ground that the animal was not muzzled, A.s the father was pleading with the dog-catcher the child disappeared beneath the surface and her body was not vet been recovered.

HONOUR FOR WAR DOG. FLORENCE, May 30. The Florence Society for the Protection of Animals has conlerred a gold medal on Nino, a magnificent wolfhound, for distinguished services both on the Italian front and in Libya. Nino was captured near an Austrian outpost- during the Italian advance beyond the Pinvc in the autumn or 1918. He attached himself to Lieut. Vincenzo Baglioni of the “Ardito” (storm troops) and became noted for his extraordinary courage and intelligence. Ho followed his master into the thick of several engagements and was wounded in an eye by a shell splinter. After the occupation of Vittorio A'eneto. Nino proved of the greatest help in rounding up Austrian deserters who were in hiding in the neighbourhood and harrassing the population by brigandage. He .showed unfailing Hair in discovering their tracks and unearthing them. In 1919 Nino accompanied Lieut-. Baglioni to Africa and took'part in the Lihy an campaign. -On one occasion when his master, wounded in the hand, was oil the point of drowning off the coast of Gargareseh. Nino jumped into the sea. and rescued him. The gold medal was solemnly presented to Nino before a large and enthusiastic audience.

| BACK TO PBE-WA.lt. j PATHS, May 30. The principle that a paper franc is to l>o regarded as the equivalent I of a gold franc, despite the rate fixed j in the eyilhangc market. !<as been laid down by the Court do Cassation (tho highest court in France) in a case in which the plaintiffs were an English firm operating in Algiers. The plaintiffs, the Algiers Land and Warqhouse Co.. Ltd., in 18S3. let on lease their property in Algiers to a French firm at £9.1P0 a year, which rent was then paid at the normal exchange of 23 francs to the £. In 1923 the British firm summoned its tenants to pay their rent in pounds sterling. The latter refused and the matter was taken to court. The Civil Tribunal at Nice and the Appeal Court at Aix-en-Provence successively gave judgment in favour of the British firm, hut the Cour de Cassation has reversed the previous judgments' on. the ground that, by virtue of the law of August 5, 1914. the Bank of France and the Bank of Algeria are exempt from repaying their notes in gold until an Act of Parliament has decided otherwise.