The San Francisco call., 1899-03-12
THE RACE TRACK JUGGERNAUT
Continued from Page Twenty-Five.

and see a woman with one of these big
black bags hanging at her side and a
newspaper In her hand-the racing chart
edition-you can make up your mind that
she is a regular" a woman who plays
the races every day.
To the unsophisticated these huge
purses look enticing. One might imagine
that they go home every day after the
races filled with coin. That is a mis-
take. They usually contain bag of
crackers or sandwiches, a flask of whisky,
pair of opera glasses, perhaps some
headache powders and little purse with
more money in it when they arrive than
when they return home after the races.
The women who do win at the races
the ones who sit calmly in the grand
stand and go down into the poolroom only
to get boy to cash their checks for them
are in most cases wives or relatives of
the bookmakeTs and jockeys, who pick
out the winners for them. 1t is these
women, to all appearances riszing their
money as do the rest, who encourage the
hundreds of poor working women to
squander their earnings. These book
makers and turf men can well afford to
let their wives or women friends play the
races and occasionally lose if need be,
for they we'll know it is the steady stream
of quarters, of 50-cent pieces, of dollars
of the hundreds of poor working women
that counts-that sWells their Golfers.
These women play small amount upon
each event every day of the season, and
these constant driblets amount to thou
sands of dollars in the end.
The methods of the ''touts" are most
despicable. and were not the race track
a gambling place of the worst character
they would not be tolerated. Signs Be
ware of 'tOuts should at least be
placed in the wOmen's pOOlroOm for the
benefit of the uninitiated. These fellows
who have hung around the stables until
they think they know the run of things
sink around in the Women'S poolroom,
occasionally giving free advice on the
races or the form of the horses, thereby
ipgratiating themselves with the betting
women. Finally, after they have re-
maned around sufficiently long to begin
to look stationary and people begin to
have confidence in them, they side up to
you and agree to put your money up for
you. They will do it honestly for a day
or so, until they begin to get a half dozen
of women or more to buy pools through
them, and some fine day, with perhaps
a half dozen five or ten dollar bets of
different women in his hands, your tout
suddenly disappears never to be seen
again.
Not a day passes that women are not
the dupes of these vicious touts. II they
report their losses to the bookmakers or
to the policemen they get no sympathy
and are told that they should have bought
from the official pool buyers who
charge 35 cents for their services. There
are many ways, however, by which wo-
men may be cheated even by these high
officials At the IngIeside track IL Is so
arranged that it is impossible for wo-
men to watch the figures of the book
makers, and so they must take the odds
given them by the pool buyers to whom
they trust their money
Some of these women bettors have their
faVorite jockeys and bet more largely
upon the winning jockey than they do
upon the horse. There is no doubt that
they know them better, for a great many
of the women know the jockeys person
ally.
In illustration, a girl of perhaps Is
hard featured. painted and frizzled, red
handed, shabby and brazen-sat down at
a table in the Shelbyville poolrosm few
days since with creature old enough to
be her grandmother, likewise painted and