The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1903-08-22
" UNCLES" AT THE TRACK.
Pawnbroking on the Sly Done on the
Race Courses.

IT guess maybe the privilege of con-
Quoting pawnshops on the racetracks
around New York wouldn't be a big
thing" remarked a Tenderloin money
lender at the Brighton track the other
afternoon. If the JOCKEY club people
would stand for my putting up little
three-balled booth on each of the tracks
during the New York racing season,
could easily afford to pay them half
the profits for the privilege, and, charg-
ing very low interest rates on quickly
redeemed pledges, I'd be pretty near
ready to retire rich at the end of 1--WE
years"
The metropolitan racing body has Of
ten been approached by responsible
pawnbrokers eager to offer almost any
terms for the privilege of conducting
loan business on the New York race
tracks. Such offers have invariably
been refused, and probably always will
be. Money lending establishments are
openly conducted with the permission
of the racing authorities on several Eur
opean race courses, particularly in Ger
many and Austria. But the American
temperament is far different from the
Teutonic, and the jocky clubs view Is
that pawnshops on the New York tracks
would be bad for the sport.
Nevertheless, the lending of money on
personal property Is quietly, not to say
furtively, carried on at the race tracks
around New York A number of peripa-
Of the regulars, are to be found lurking
around the betting ring stanchions when
the game is on, and they drive flour
ishing trade.
1t is more than possible that their
presence on the tracks is known or suS-
pected by the racing authorities, but as
they are all discreet men and as their
dealings are conducted almost exclus
lively with the hopeless, -the-wOol
regulars, their operations are, as a rule,
~ad f=ff lE1r-
slips in who makes his business too pal
pable, but such fellows do not last long.
Not long ago, at Sheepshead bay, one Of
them who undertook to suggest to OBJ
servant persons the nature of his bust
ness by wearing a pin composed of three
gold balls in his scarf found himself
waiting for the next trolley car within
a very short time after he had entered
the track gate.
The hardest work we have to do is to
keep under cover" remarked one of the
track money-lenders. I'VE don't issue
any tickets to our customers. any more
than do the bookmakers on the New
York tracks.
THE boys on my list know where to
find me when they need me. They pass
over their stuff. hand them the money,
and make a brief memorandum of the
deal in my little book. 1 scale my
charges good deal from those charged
In the regular pawnshOps, on account Of
the short periods during which nave
possession of most of the pledges that
drift my way. Diamond gear is the only
stuff l handle aside from valuable tim
ing watches, and not too many of them.
It's nothing uncommon for a close
hauled regular sailing with the wind
under reefed topsls to pop his stuff in
several times in the course of an after
Moons racing. Last Saturday afternoon,
for example, a horse follower with
whom I've been doing business for
years passed me his ring rock, a six
carat blue-white gem. and took $500 on
it That must have been about the
thousandth time that I've had that ring
in my possession. I've often offered to
let this man have what money he need
ed without taking any of his stuff as
security, but he has always declined
such offers. 1 want to know that I'm
running for blood, he tells me, and that
it's a case with me of no land-right, no
flash light. New York Sun.