A TIN-POT CLUB.

NZ Truth, Issue 144, 21 March 1908, Page 6

A TIN-POT CLUB.

Making it Hard for the pooks.

Because the Legislature fixed a maximum fee to be imposed on bookmakers by racing clubs, that . is no reason why every tin-pot little club should charge a prohibitive price for their licenses. Bookies 'have to compete with the tote, make £15 to £20 profit for the club., before they can call a coin their own, then stand a chance of being blown, up as high as Baldwin by a bad run of luck. The unspeakable cheek of some of these tuppenny-happennv clubs is brutally unpleasant, ami "Truth" selects frhti Tahuna Trotting Club, Dunedin, as an organisation with a corrugated hide. The club stood a 'chance tff getting a number of pencillers from Christchurch if it charged a license fee m proportion to its comparative unimportance, . but the committee had the nerve to ask fifteen guineas for the privilege of- howling one's self black m the face at an unresponsive public. Applications were to be m two days before 'the meeting last month, accompanied by the fee, which was sent along by metallicians H. Grainger, J3ill Barns, F. Franklyn, and Bradshaw (Wellington). The cluib, however, . FRACTURED ITS OWN RULES 1)y issuing licenses on the day of the meetings and the four gentlemen named, dissatisfied with the prospect at the price, refused to sign the customary document, and didn't operate at the races. Later they were astonished to learn that the remarkable club committee had forfeited the whole sixty guineas, and refused to refund the fees. As Hie first principle of a contract like this is that the bookmakers should call the odds on the horse, the experience will proba-bly cost the Tahuna Park yokels a power of money m litigation, for there is certain to be a test case. II the Colonial Secretary were disposed to refuse a tote license to some of these insolent clubs their haughty tone to the bookmakers might moderate a littl*, .

rality, or even^ undue immodesty, ought- to be sumtnarily disposed of m the deepest part ef the "Otago Harbor. - The rumor that the Club, or Dam Little Fools generally (who held their meetings m the Otago "Daily Times" office) was merely a clever advertising and money-making scheme on the part of the Otago "Witness" proprietary was the silliest kind of canard.