Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-01-10
Some Knocker, This Cullen.


race track at Savannah tells me about
the game down there:
Its eighteen different kinds of frost
multiplied by blizzard, and then multi
piled four or five times by some goose
eggs and ciphers and zeros and things
Just a few folks go out every day, nine
tenths of them sheet writer's and outside
men from the New York tracks out OF
work, touts, and the riffraff' and hangers
on of the New York tracks, none OF whom
has got 50 cents with which to make
himself believe he's going to sleep in a
ure-enough bed after shutdown.
"A few sporty rummies-oh, often as
many as fifteen or twenty-from Savan-
nah joggle out to the track every day and
just gamble their fool heads off. Why
I've seen some of them bet as high as
two dollars on a race. yes, / have. They're
CHANDELIERS from their heart, they sure
are. and it's sin and shame the way
they spradde around their coin.
The track itself is miserable little
half miller. and the turns are SO abrupt
that a horse runs into himself and steps
on his nose when he has TO make one OF
them at any pace faster than a walk
AS a matter of fact, ali of the helds are
pulled almost to a dead walk Ill making
the turns, and then it's a case of a new
start all over again, and the boy who is
there with tlye finest assortment of rough
riding junk spins his crab through the
crush and cops the spinach
Despite the fact that It's dinky half
mile track and that you can see every
horse1y that lights on a Jockeys ear
from one end of the race TO the finish.
the jockeys who are picking up a little
board and room change down there don I
hesitate to pull the widest kind of raw
stuff right there in full sight CT every
body The other day boy of the name
of Dale had the mutt he was riding out
in front of his field by about twenty
lengths. The horse had the bit in his
molars and was running away with the
kid yo, Zee, in spite of the fact that the
crab had been arranged previously to run
like steam roller. or at least his people
thought they'd @deadened him up that
way. Well. little Dale just wraps the
rens around his strong little arms about
nine consecutive times as the horses bob
down the stretch, and Just succeeds in
taking the rlu2 right under the noses of
the Judges the horse only losing by about
half of "a face on the tape. 1t was one Of
the blandest little performances you ever
saw on any kind of a desperate track.
The boy would have got away with it,
too. to the enrichment of his people, If
there hadn't been long and fierce howl
from bunch who couldn't stand for the
thing being done quite so braZenly as
that, and 50 the kid was set down.
.'rhe track really is only run fer, the
pooIroomS, and the betting WITNESSES that
you see there make anything OF that kind
that ever YOU saw 2t ola iron Hill lock
clumsy and foolish. You see. the pool
rooms are in momentary connection with
the track. When the prices Ccen and the
public sends in its kale on the liked plug,
and everything is all set that way, the
poolrooms I'D north that have got bum
per coin the favorite make some quick
calculations on their sheets, and then the
wires get busy, and the first thing you
know the price against that highly played
favorite is lengthening until 1t looks like
the shadow cast by Clecpatra's needle.
Then the bunch who've played this dead
one see what's coming off and they bulge
around trying to pick something out of
the short field to hedge on, and they send
in their bundles on that one, and present
ly the wCrd swings along that that one
hadn't ought to COP, either. and then
some punk outsider that nobody would
play with counterfeit onions is sent out
to connect with the duff. and does so con-
meet. and tie betting folks have the usual
chance to bite their nails and wish that
they had remained at home lodging the
installmcnt man or doing something else
pleasant agreeable.
Great little old game down in Savan-