The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-01
Betting to Be Abolished on the Two Race
Courses, and the Island To Be Run on
Strictly Moral Principles.
The Ghost of Captain Rynders and the
Father of General Dan Sickles.
What President Arthur Will Do After His
Retrement-An Audacious Females
Failure-An UnWelcome Check.
ENFORCING THE LAWS.


Betting at Coney Island To Re Abolished, and
the Place Run on Moral Principles.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.
New YORK, Feb. 23.-There is bad news for
turfmen. Betting the at the two
Coney Island courses is to be abolished That
means disaster to the many horse-owners who
have, in consequence of last seasons wonderful
briskness of business on these tracks, made
arrangements for deyoting themselves next
summer to this rich field Coney Island has
peen place with laws unto itself. However,
by some hook or crook, the Brooklyn authorities
have jurisdiction there. and now there are those
that decree that the pool-selling must cease.
The Coney Island Jockey Club had come to take
the place made vacant when all gambling except
that Of book making was suppressed at Jerome
Park The fashionable folks the professional
gamblers, the Wall street brokers' and the
great throng that go to the races to
bet a few dollars on the results all transferred
their allegiance to the Coney Island track, and
it became the most prosperous of all the Eastern
racing places. The profits of the association
have been very great, and they have been able,
therefore, to offer very attractive purses and to
make it very pleasant for patrons of the track.
to $780, 900 day. ard the races attracted the
most skillful book makers and the most adroit
gamblers that frequent our tracks. The utmost
order and decorum were observed.
Probably il the Coney Island Jockey Club
were the only racing association on the island
tho good folks of Brooklyn would not have raised
rumpus. but the Brighton Beach association
began operations, and then the complaints be-
gan to pour in The races on this track defy
description or comparison. There is nothing
like them elsewhere in this broad land.
They are run to mako money, and for no
other reason, and there is all sorts of trickery
and hippodroming from the beginning of race
day to the end of il. The betting is fast and
furious like the pace of horses, and the poolsell
ers and book makers are up to every artifce
known to man, to beat the man who puts in his
cash. Orderis not preserved, and there is de-
moraiizing air of sin, vice and crime around the
place. The women, and there many of them
there, are not from the Christian homes of
Brooklyn, or the aristocratic avenues of New
York. They are sporting women, and they bet
with equal freedom and abandon as do the men,
They on the lookout for adventure and for
victims. The track deserves some of it's bad
reputation, but not all, though it has been bad
enough to furnish some ground for complaint,
and the authorities have decided that the law of
gambling, which in New York is now very strict,
must be observed. To that end the place on
Coney Island, where, a few days ago, the pool
sellers were selling the New Orleans races,
have been closed, the proprietors arrested and
fined, and a general warning has been given to
all the racing associations that like fate awaits
the first man who sells an auction or mutual
pool The games of chance are all to be sup
pressed, and the Objectionable houses are to be
closed In short, Coney Island is to be run this
year on strictly moral principles.
One of the base bali associations had made ar
rangements to open a ball ground there and
offer as an especial attraction, games on Sunday,
the day on which the biggest crowds visit the
island 1t would have been hit without doubt,
but the managers have been informed that there
could be no breaking of the Sabbath The result
is that the ball ground project is abandoned