RACECOURSE RUFFIANISM.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1921, Page 6

RACECOURSE RUFFIANISM.

BOOKMAKERS ATTACKED. PROTECTORS EMPLOYED. London, August 22. A new trade, “bookmaker’s minder,” has sprung up as a result of the ruffianism on racecourses. Aaron Jacobs was sentenced to three months’ hard labor at Whitechapel as a suspected person. He was seen at Hurst Park parading between an avenue of bookmakers with the handle of a hatchet protruding from his jacket pocket. When arrested he said that the hatchet was intended for chopping the points of stakes displaying the bookmakers’ names. A bookmaker testified that Jacobs worked with him for months, and was always trustworthy. He was “a minder—looking after me,” he said. The police prosecutor, producing a list of convictions, said that Jacobs was known as the East End Terror. The racing gang vendetta has broken out again at Bath. In two separate eases bookmakers were attacked outside the course by. roughs, members of a Birmingham gang, who wielded hammers and seriously injured the victims. A third disturbance occurred on another racecourse, where a man- was struck on the head with a “life preserver.”