HOW “TATTS” IS DRAWN.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4512, 8 January 1923, Page 4

HOW “TATTS” IS DRAWN.

PROCEDURE DESCRIBED. ELABORATE PRECAUTIONS. INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT. In a few minutes someone, somewhere, will have won £5OOO. Five thousand notes—less, the Federal Government cut! That is the first thought in your mind .as you sit in hushed expectation at a long, baize-covered table in the drawing-room pf Tattersall’s head Office in Hobart (writ'es “A.W.W.” in the Sydney Sun). In tiers of seats back to the wall are, perhaps, fifty people. Opposite you, at the official table sits a police inspetcor in resplendent uniform. You glance furtively at the ticket in your wallet. Tatt's sweep is about to be drawn. At the top end of the table is a huge barrel, with a crank and gear .arrangement for rotating it. It is encircled by a heavy strap, presumably to keep the small trap-door shut. But that would seem a needless precaution when you see that the door, is twice sealed with wax, and, anyway, is locked. Leaning on the barrel, the manager explains in an uninteresting and apparently uninterested voice what is about to happen, and how the marbles in the barrel are returned ' after each set. of prizes is drawn, so that the same ticket may possibly draw, a horse, a £loo' prize, a £5O prize, and a few other smaller ones. He doesn’t sound very hopeful, but you have another glance at your ticket. The 20 prizes of £lOO are to be drawn first. At the signal from the manager a man. vigorously turns the crank, and the barrel spins round, to the accompaniment of a rattling protest from 100,000’ marbles inside. It is explained that all the marbles are numbered consecutively and that they are checked periodically by the Government and police officials, and that each one is represented by a ticket sold. A few more spins the other way and the barrel stops with the trap-,door at the top. With hammer and chisel the wax is clipped away. A representative of the State Treasury steps ( forward and, breaking the seal pn an official envelope, produces a key with which the door is opened. The Man With the “Jigger.” The man with the “jigger” comes along now —a modern personification of the God of' Chance. He is armed with an affair—“jigger” describes .t well —which looks like an enlarged domestic kerosene pump. But what looks like the spout is a sort of trigger. At another signal he plunges is deep into the mass o£ wooden mar-

bles. Releasing the trigger, he pulls it out. .with a single marble gripped in small jaws at the business end which he dropst into a beautifully plated soup ladle held by the Treasury official. Ping! somebody is £loo’ richer. The Government official calls out the number, an assistant whites it down, as dp also members of the sweep staff and the police inspector. As fast as the jigger ban foe manipulated npw the “hundreds” drop out. When twenty marbles are out the numbers are checked. The first Treasury official takes <the other’s figures. The members of the staff exchange lists and the numbers on the marbels, npw neatly arranged on a recessed tray, are called out again and thoroughly checked.

The twenty marbles are put back into the barrel, the door, is looked, and the barrel spins again. By simply repeating the operation the winners of each pf the twenty prizes at £5O and the ten prizes at £4O, £3O, and £2O are determined. Now for the big money. The manager announces that a visitor from Queensland would like to draw the horses. A smaller barrel at the other j end of the tables comes into use. In ' this are placed black marbles, each having pasted upon it the name of a horse in the race, every horse being represented. The two barrels are spun. The map with the jigger pulls out a marble, and at the same moment. the visitor takes a bl.ack marble out of the small opening in his barrel. The number is called, and immediately afterwards .the horse. This goes pn until the number of horses is exhausted. The number marbles go back into their box, and the results are recorded and checked as before. Nbbody in the room l seenis to have drawn a horse. In a silence broken only by the rattling of the 100.000 wooden spheres being agitated again, preparations are being made to draw the smaller prizes. Somebody has won £5OOO. But you don’t know who it is. It may be a man in India, or it may be the man that stung yon 5s for taking your luggage up from the boat. You hope it may be the man in India. Tire Smaller Prizes. The crowd melts, away as the smaller prizes, £lO and £5, are drawn. There are 300 of the (former and 450 of the latter. For this work—it seems a trifling matter now, until you realise that these prizes alone aggregate £s2so—the jigger is discarded. The marbles are scooped put of the barrel with the ladle and poured into trays which eac,h hold’ 100. When the required number has been so poured, the trays are handed down to the Treasury official and the recording and checking goes on again, After the last marble has been re-

turned to the barrel the man frpm the Treasury takes charge, and you get a glimpse of the elaborate precautions which are taken by the Tasmanian Government to ensure the fairness of the sweep which it sanctions’—for the trifling consideration of 6d pn each 5s -ticket and Is on each 10s one. A. glue-pot full of sealing wax is brought in- Several lengths of red tape—the real departmental red tape—are placed over the cracks along the edge of the trap-door, which meantime has been carefully locked. Large blobs of wax are dropped over this, and then the official seal pf the Tasmanian Treasury is impressed upon it. One seal is not. quite in the centre of .the red tape. Off it comes. More wax, and the seal again. The key is placed in an envelope many sizes .too large for it. Both ends of this are deluged with wax, and the official imprint pla.ced there also. The drawing is over. A Million Tickets. As ypu walk about the building inspecting the various clerical departments you hear some interesting statements. During the past, seven weeks a million tickets have been sold, a fair proportion of them being 10s ones. The average mail is 1200 letters a day. Not one is delivered by the postal Officials to the prohibited address pf the sweep headquarters. They are brought in in bundles by those who are paid about 5s a hundred for their trouble. The Federal Government reduced its cut from 14 pei - cent, to 12% per cent, at about the time of the Caulfield Cup, and did not bother to notify Tattersall’s. Apparently it could not write to the prohibited address, so it let the matter drop. But Tattersall’s heard of it a day or so ago and the firm is now | busy sending out credit notes to wini ners since that date. There is an investigation department in Tatt’s, and some good stories are to be gleaned. Once a man in Sydney had his pocket picked, and lost his ticket.. The ticket won a £lO prize, and was duly sent in for payment. But as the address given for the payment of the money did not correspond with the address of the purchaser • Tatt’s sent it along to the Sydney po- | lice, whp called there and arrested I the pickpocket.

Then there is the story of .the man from overseas who sent £1 for tickets. Months later he sent another £l, saying that he had received np .tickets, but presumed that his money or his tickets had been lost on the way across the submarine-infested waters. The investigation department found that the tickets had been sent, all right, and that one of them had won £5OOO. They wrote him a cheerful little note to that effect, and enclosed the cheque. -