The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-25

didn't know the bookies' faces something
TO go by. ,
The bettor would see three OF four big
yellow chrysahthemums in a bunch, and
then he'd take a psek at the .feCe OF the
man with the slate in TINT group, end he'd
have a'fair hance TO ms Ike his identii cGt ton.
Other. bockies wore ~,iolets. rigging their
crew out the same way.
Others bad roses II four bits "a throw.
with the n embers OF the crew also staked
10 the 20 cent ~exotics. There weren't
enough flowers 20 go around, OF, course,
after the. chrysanthemums, v%iolets. roses,
carnations and such like were utilized
by the chaps who first thought of this
scheme. and then other ornC ments began TO
appear in the bookies' buttonholes.
One OF them wore u oRrrot on his lapel,
With his crew similarly fixed out. Another
chose the cauliiower for his. and still
another had a small purple cabbage stuck
on luis coat and provided his crew with
the ssme.
These were distinctive badges and made
the bookies fairly easy to identity. once
they could be actually found by the puzzled
bettors.
Lets see, 80 to 10 on the favorite with
Turnips,' the bettor would humble TO him
self, and then he'd pencil his bet on his
programme and put the word Turnips
underneath IL so as 70 remind himself that
he Ia made his bet with the bookmaker
who had adopted the tunip as his business
badge and symbol.
AS tho meeting progressed a lot Of the
bookies took to wearing strange looking
hats so as to furnish additional means OF
! Identifying themselves TO their players.
The lowers and such junk pinned to the
coat lapels were all right in their way, but
they were somewhat hidden in the teeming
ring crowds, n the hat thing was recog-
nized as meritorious because the hat and
out above the crowd and a peculiar looking
| lid is the first thing that is noticed about a
man.
You never saw such top pieces on earth
as the layers wore in that Bennings ring
after this hat gag took hold. They'd carry
the hats out to the ring with them as props,
only wearing them in the ring, and the
headgear made them look like vaudeville
monologists in costume.
Some of them went down the bay, as rum
maging around in the second hand section
is called and picked out their ring lids.
Some of those top pieces must have been
fifty years old.
There were bell crowned white beavers,
dinky Dave Wsrfeld derbies that came
| down over the layers ears, and truck Of that
kind that passed out of date in Carrie Ma
tons girlhood. Some OF the chalkers wore
big yellow sombreros, banded around wi. i
buckled straps, for purposes Of ring identi-
6cation.
-Others wore old straw hats on the warm
days. One of the local layers wore a yellow
cap with the name of a punk brand OF cigar
cites printed in big letters all over the front
Of it.
at was a case with the layers Of wearing
n old thing that would enable their players
to catch a quick flash at them as they
moseyed around the ring and the rest of the
place, and the system served pretty we'll
at that. II the cha'kers had not adopted
some such means of distinguishing them
selves one from the other, the players would
sure have been in trouble, for not many men
have a keen memory for faces, and the book
les on the first day wore mostly the same
kind Of overcoats and hats and neckties
and such like.
If the thing keeps up and the system
spreads 10 New York, as a good many pre-
dict, we'll see a revival Of the old fashioned
DOOh1llA hCIb NOGNbIAS NlNSI IA Jazz SNAAtA
TN be worth while to see George Wheelock
diked out like an end man..
Orlando Jones will be there with a
zypsy's rig-he'n have to flag his whiskers
TO look the part, though-and Dan Donnelly
will trot around the ring in a costermonger's
fxup. Sol Lichtenstein would make a hit in
a Pierrot's rig. and maybe well have a peek
at Eddie Burke gyrating around the ring as
a harlequin.
George Rose would make a hit In the COS
tune OF Gaspard the Miser, and George
Boles could take the big money while dis
porting himself around the works as
Humpty Dnmpty. Bill Cowan could win
the applause Of the ladies in the galleries
overlooking the betting ring as Beppo the
Shepherd. and what would be the matter
with Joe vendig rubbing his prices, when
he sees John Gates coming, in the outfit of
a seventeenth century pirate?
-Humming Bird Tyler could borrow that
costume from the Woodland extrava-
ganza and show up IN the ring as the owl,
and the bookies Of the Louis ella COM
bination could dixie themselves out severally
as strangers, wharf rats, levee louis, shell
workers and three card monte men.
IF the Bennings system is ador ted over
here-as it sure may have TO be II the Jockey
Club has any trouble with the authorities
| the betting rings will look like East Side
costume balls, and it'll be only a question
Of time before the layers provide themselves
with banios and guitars and jewsharps and
mouth organs and kazoos, in order to at
tract attention TO their locations and the
prices on their states.
But II this new system creates all sorts
Of confusion and bother on a little track
like that at Bennings. how could II ever be
made TO work on the New York tracks,
where a daily attendance OF 1000 people
Is nothing unusual, and where the bumper
holiday crowds on the great handicap days
often foot up twice as many admissions at
the gates?
with bookmakers constantly shutting
around, never remaining in n spot more
than two minutes at a time, it looks to me
as IL the system would be all but impossible
on the New York tracks. l think can see
the rioting now if they ever try TO work
that system around here
nTTDEnT~c At