"TATTS"

Shannon News, 8 January 1926, Page 4

"TATTS"

1 HOW ED IS BUN. ( _____ FINANCIAL SAVIOUR OF STATE. (By* Francis Yew). Tasmania, seoffingly referred to by its larger sisters of the Australian Commonwealth as "The Speck State," but richer in mineral wealth, timber, water, power, and soil fertility than any of them, is notorious as the home 6t "Tatts," otherwise Tattersall's Consultations, which provide sweepstakes of from £SOOO to £IO,OOO in connection with all classic race meetings of Australia, "' Outlawed by the remaining States, Tattersall's were welcomed to little Tasmania, the Government of which reaps a rich harvest from a tax on tickets. Indeed, even with the subsidy from the Commonwealth, Tasmania would find it impossible to balance its State Budget without the assistance of "Tatts," from which it draws between £200,000 and £300,000 a year. Some day, when its population has increased (it is now only in the vicinity of 200,000), and its industries have developed to a very much greater degree by the blessing of its illimitable water-power* Tasmania may be able to do without "Tatts," wh-ch may then have to buy a 'kingdom, jof its own; "but at present the island State is almost as dependent on "Tatts" as is the principality of Monaco on Monte Carlo. Started by George Adams.

It is many years since Tattersalls was started, by George Adams in Sydney. Driven from New South Wales, "Tatts" found refuge in Tasmania —a warmly inviting sanctuary—and has since thrived in the arms of the little Cinderella State, despite the. laws of I the Commonwealth, which refuse to handle its correspondence. But before , It went to Tasmania it had made a j fortune for its owner. Adam's Marble f Bars, a famous Sydney hotel/was built by George Adams, and it is said that the beautiful little Palace Theatre adjoining was paid for out of unclaimed \ prize money. The Commonwealth Post Office refuses to transmit money orders or letters, to "Tatts" or to "George Adams, Hobart," which was the old address of the "old firm,'' but "Tatts" has thousands of agents in Australia, and indeed in this country, and transmissions are made to many people in Hobart, so that scores of thousands of postal notes and tickets cross the Tasman and Bass Strait every week. And though the Commonwealth Government refuses to countenance this great human gambling machine, it does not forget to add to its revenue also by heavily taxing prizes payable to the lucky winners. "Tatts," by the way, ii heartily cursed by some of the business people of Hobart. The writer knew a man who thought too good a thing to be out of, so he started one of his own in New Zealand. If rightly remembered, I think he told me that Acams bought him out, or Avas about to'buy him out, when the New-Zea-land Government wiped the business out. Later this man was in a line (that yielded less profit, though it was more legitimate. He was running a fruit shop in Elizabeth Street, Hobart The Drawing. The drawing of "Tatts" is a most interesting procedure. For years I watched it regularly, almost every Saturday morning, in the large "drawing room" of "George Adams," next to the famous old Ship Inn, in Collins Street, Hobart. Being one of the pressmen who used to watch the drawing, in company with members of the Police Force, oh behalf of the. public, I was accorded a complimentary ticket in these sweeps, the tickets being paid for by "George Adams." But, strange to say, I never won a prize, though several prizes went to people on the mainland Of Australia on whose behalf I was commissioned to purchase tickets. Looking back, 1 "take it hard" that I was never even offered a percentage of the prizes by the tight-fisted winners whom I had obliged (without charge) by obtain- j ing their tickets.

Let it be said that the drawing of [ is the fairest thing- imaginable. When the company is assembled two men clad in white robes take a haiJ die at either side and .revolve a huge wooden . drum in which there are numbered marbles. These being sufficiently "mixed," the seals of the little'door are broken, and another man advanves with a stick resembling a billiard cue, excepting that instead of a tip there is a rounded clip, just sufficiently large to * grasp one marble. If there are to be a hundred prizes, a hundred marbles are withdrawn, one at a time, and the numbers of the marbles called out and written down by Press, police,, and. the "Tatts" officials. The Imcky Marbles. The drawn marbles are then "placed in a smaller drum, which also goes through the revolving process. Then they are drawn, one by one, with a small clip-ended stick, and as they are drawn the name of one of the horses in the race with which the sweep is connected is called. The own cm' of tickets corresponding with these numbers have "drawn a horse" —which means that they draw a prize of £IOO, whether the horse runs into a place or not—or, at least, that used to.be the arrangement. If the ho'rse won, of cours,e the holder of the ticket corresponding with the calling of the horse's name would be the winner of the first prize, the same rule applying to' second and third horses. The other marbles over and above the number of horses represent cash prizes of more or less substantiality —a sort of encouragement to the winners to try again for the big stakes. After the drawing the company is entertained by- the management to champagne and chiclam. Soma people used' to say that the champagne" was only Tasmanian sparkling cider. It used to taste all right, anyway.