TURF FRAUDS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 3, 1 November 1883, Page 4

TURF FRAUDS.

TTavtso published a series of articles on the r above subject with a view of warning .out • readers against the alluring advertfsemei. which have appeared in our columns,—th e coctions condelueive of a ring of • ‘ blacklegs, —we feel incumbent on ns, in justice to honest promoters, who, it is asserted, have . suffered to a considerable extent by the publicity we gave to the nefarious proceed* tngs of the black sheep of the flock, teglve auke prominence to the genuine ones. With a view to this end we give the following from the Sydney Morning Herald By the Herald Detective, j My list of swindling sweeps aud tbs fraudulent promoters thereof has been sri lengthened that the intelligent section of the sweep investing public by this time probably despair of anything good coming out of Nazareth, and slightly paraphrasing the the psalmist’s assertion, my readers may have “ said in their hearts all (sweep) men are—Vlctorys.” This is not exactly the case, and I regret exceedingly to hew that my aeries of article* exposing the rogue* of the “ Consultation confederacy has created such an universal spirit of mistrust that the few honest sweep promoters have suffered slightly. This was certainly not the intention of the proprietors of The Herald in instituting the investigation, the results of which they have published during the past month. However, the impression has apparently gone abroad that all sweep promoters are «* tarred with the same brush, ’ for I am informed that there has been a slight fallingoff of the leading consul tat ion Is ts owing to the wide publicity given by The Herald to the swindling modus operandi of some of the lesser lights. Intending investors have evidently argued with themselves in the following fashion “ Well, there are so many crooked sweeps, it is difficult to tell whether any of them are square, »•’ we will keep our money in our pockets, and make sure of it —a very good resolution founded on a wrong basis. However, as all of the sweep promoters, do not depend for their existence on the half-crowns extorted under false pretences from barmaids and factory girls; it may be as well if I give a brief » esume of the number of yean, and the conditions under which some of the honest sweep projectors have been before the public. Twenty-one yea>B ago, in the same hotel m Fitzroy which he now occupies, “ the ArchMedium,” main’y, I believe, to oblige his custom*™, projectecT a sweep on the Melbourne Cup. Five shillings Was the fee, and the number of subscribers limited to one hundred. This was one of Archer’s two winning years, and although the lucks drawer of the ** Commotion ” of 1862 received but £l5, there was more excitement over tne drawing of that little sweep than there has been evinced since in connection with any of the £2OuU consultations- In those days ail of the investors in a sweep were present at the drawing, and on the occasion I refer to a hundred or so sanguine subscribers, principally residents of Ht-zroy, were packed into a room with a barrell and markrs, aud left to draw the affair amongst themselves, the results were written out on a large sheet uf paper, and posted st once m the bar of the hotel. Steadily during the twenty years which have elapsed since 1862 the “ ArchMed tai” consultations have increased in popularity. 500 at £1 was launched in 1876, and 1000 filled a year or two afterwards. Last year the Melbourne Cup sweep c osed with 8400 subscribers, while another 7000 individual* invested'in the same promoter’s consultations on,tije The Champion, Australian Cup, Waterloo and : the Cauli&eld Cup races. This year already one £2OOO sweep on the Caulfield Cup has been filled and d*awn, and from an inspection of ArchMedium’js books, there is every indication of No 2 filing between tins and the 20th. I have interviewed a prominent member of • the medical profession, who is equally at home in the saddle and the surgerv, and who has bren present at the ” Arch-Med'um's ” drawings repeatedly during the past ten years, and this gentleman informs me he has never observed anything which uuuld be even construed as irregular in connection with either the “ Arch-Medium’s ” apparatus, or its manipulation, the books were there on erery occasion open for inspection, the appli cation for ticket* from each individual fib d in idphabetical O'd-r, a* d the cheque blocks recording the amounts paid away to <<rawers of prizes stacked on the shelf in consecutive order. Th-s ceitainly is one of the few “ Square Sweeps,” 1 have come across in my peregrinations nnong*t the promoters, and if the public must invest in sweeps, (though I myself don’t quite see the necessity for it), Arch Medium’s ” seance, unlike its less material prototypes, will bear the strong ligh> of puulic inspection. It is something to be able to say that in all my enquiries 1 have never heard even the breath of a surpvdon against Arch-. Medium, who, in his sweeps, tike Casar’s wife, is above suspicion. Another promoter whose sweeps are drawn publicly, sans peur et sans reproche, is ‘•The Novel Oracle.” For the past fifteen or twenty years the gentleman who has adopted that nom de yv.erre ha* been before the Victorian public, and is probably one of the best known on the Australian turf. Uf past years agricultural pursuit* have en grossed the largest share of his attention, aud cuusequeutly the sweep promoting has been comparatively neglected, and this last year or two but one consultation on the Derby and Cup has been brought off by him.

Like u Arch-Medium,” the promoter of “The New Novel Oracle” invites some twenty individuals to the drawing of his consultation. A list is kept comprising the names and addresses of the chairman and scruntineers who have been present at the several drawings, and I have ascertained from some of these gentlemen that everything in past years has been fair and above board.

In my opinion the “Novel Oracle Company’s ” sweep affords fair and reasonable opportunities for speculation, and I believe that—in the ev- nt of an investor drawing a prize—the money will be promptly forthcoming. When Dickens scribbled his Sketches by Boz, that keen student of human nature certainly never dreamt—in his wildest flights of imagination—that his worn d* plume would be borrowed by an Antipodean “Bob,” whose literary explorations are at present confined to <leciphering the name* of some hundred odd horses on as many marbles, and whose knowledge of the idi< syneracies of the Victorian susceptible human nature h s brought in “mure grist to the mid” than ever fell to the lot of the immortal author of Pickwick.

During the twenty-five years that “ Boz ” has catered for the speculative palate of the sweep-investing public in Australia, his sweeps have gone steadily ahead, and the fact that in 1881 26 sweeps ofj £2OOO each were projected and filled, tends to prove that he deservedly enjoys an immense share of the public confience. As “ Boz ” expresses his willingness to allow any accredited press representative to inspect his books for the past ten or twenty years, or to be present at his drawings, we may reasonably infer that there is nothing in the affair which is in the slightest degree, underhand or shady ; and as the various chairmen and scrutineers who have officiated at his drawings iu past years can he produced, we must include “ Boz ” in the category of “ square sweep promoters.”

In any of tf ueae three sv eeps investor 3 can be reaaonabl; y assured of a lair drav / and their money if they win. More the y can. not have or wish for.