The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-02-02

We print with considerable pleasure
and not a little pride tae following COM
munication:
To THE EDrr1R OF TUT NEWS:
Sln--The public outside OF your State is
under great Obligation 10 your fearless journal
for its efficient opposition TO horse gambling,
inasmuch as the gambling interest is one
united force. and. as Joseph Cook says,
throws all its weight on one foot, like n
skater. wherever an issue arises The repeal
of your gaml ling legislative sanction will
greatly aid the enseavor in Massachusetts, to
enforce our laws against pool selling.
/ enclose twenty-five cents. for which send
me copies of Rev. DIR. vo e's able sermon and
your reports of opinions of Legislators in your
yesterdays issue. | desire to put copy In
the hands Of Notwithstanding Committee of
the Massachusetts, General Association of
Congregational Churches
Respectfully,
A. ii. PLUMB.
Rev. ALBERT ii. PLUMB DID,, is
pastor Of the Walnut Avenue Congre-
gational Church, corner of Walnut
avenue and Dale street, Roxbury, Mass.
DIR. PLUMB is well known in Providence
and not infrequently breaches here,
usually, we believe, from the pulpit of
the Benefcent Congregational Church.
Ia association with Hon. CHARLES
CARLETON COFFIN of Boston; Hon.
ARTHUR III. WELLMAN, of Maiden; Rev.
9. M. SoUTHGATE, of Worcester; S. L.
FIELD, Esq, of Shelburne Falls, and
Rev. G. ii. HAMLIN, Eastbampton. DIR.
PLUMB was the author of notable re-
port on pool selling made to the General
Association of Congregational Churches
of Massachusetts at its ninety-second
annual meeting held at Pittsfeld last
May.
This report showed up the whole sys-
tenn of horse gambling and pointed out
the concentration of interests in the
gambling fraternity-the gambling
trust so to speak. The figures given in
that report, which we have at hand, are
startling and are of peculiar interest at
this time in connection with the recent
attempts to make Rhode Island the field
of operation of the gambling trust. We
quote few fncts and figures from the
report.
The report sets forth the tremendous
power of the gambling trust which cen
ters in the person of JOHN A. MORRIS,
one of the principal owners of Mon
mouth Park, N. j., and the con-
trolling stakeholder in Morris Park.
Westchester County, N. Y, and also
the leading spirit in the Louisiana
Lottery. The federal legislation
which reduced the workings Of
the Louisiana Lottery drove NOR
RIs and his associates into
horse gambling on bigger scale to re-
coup themselves. What the Century
Magazine called the "allied gambling
interests" tAereupon resorted to the de-
velopment of horse gambling as a pur-
suit, and their reward has been rich, in
deed.
MORRIS is many times a millionaire
and doubtless the recent horse gambling
craze has more than compensated for
the reduction Of his income in
the Louisiana lottery. We may appre-
ciate the profits from this horse gambling
businessmen to the men who bet, or
even to the bookmakers who ray rent
for the location of their stalls, but to tho
men who run the track-when we learn
that the bookmakers pay from 800
to $125 day for their priv
ileges, and with sixty bookmaking
stands, the usual number on a
a New York race track, the manage
ment receives from $4,000 to $500 day.
One race track used to run eight days,
another one hundred and twenty-five
days and the Gutenberg, before
it was suppressed by the New Jersey
Legislature, used to run all the year
around, the horses running in snow. ice
and sleet. The Western Uuion
Telegraph Company paid sl1O0 a
day at Gutenberg for the
telegraph privilege and the price runs
from this to $500 day-a quarter of a
million year being the sum which the
Western Union admits paying, although
tits said that million year world not be
stretching the figures. Such are the rills
which swell the stream of revenue that
flows into the metropolitan race tracks.
In Chicago the gambling privileges
brought in au income to the track Of
$4,000.
Now let us glance at the other side OF
the picture-the side that shows how
the "bookies" and the telegraph COM
panies have made themselves whole, and
profited by their tremendous expendi-
tures-in single year, over s2,s9s, 900
was stolen by men who afterwards con-
fessed that the money was lost on the
races. Superintendent ByRNEs of the