The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-06-17
LAZY, HAY LIFE OF TRACKS CALLS
 TO ALL CLASSES
Always Enough To Pay The Admission Price, At
 Least

NEW YORK, June 16.-A roan-bay negro stable boy sprawled in the shade of Mister Maxey Hirsch's barn at Belmont. doing something to a strip of leather with a jack knife and singing to himself:
 No o-buddy knows whut trubble
 ah'm in;
 No-o-buddy knows but Jee-sus"
 Bees droned in the clover and from within the barn came the tinkle of chains, the muffled thump of hoofs on thick straw bedding.
 A mail plane hustled across the sky. goat with curly horns raised it's head and giggled. The sizzle and through the window of the stable boys community cook shack.
 "wish't An was over to Aqueduc t see Little Chief run," said the man in trouble. Got me piece O money on at hawss."
 Suppose he doesn't win though?"
 "'F he don't win. neither does |; hawr-hawr."
 Not A Dime Left.
 He was wearing a pair of khaki throw-aways, a sort of shirt that would have piqued the interest of an antiquarian, and good enough shoes. By his own free admission there wasn't a dime at that moment Little Chief came in. as Little Chies later happened to do. But spread out there on the grass behind the barn at Belmont. the stable boy was a clinical case by which to study the strange fever that affects SO plexions. including the Chinese. in New York, Maryland, New Orleans, kentucky-where the horses run.
 He was on the inside. He had talks with the horses every day: For 30 years he had been on the inside and talking with the horses-pri- vate, confidential mess conversations as hes set the mash before them and the hand sifted hay within their reach. And his only two dollars at the moment added to the bulge on book makers hip over at Aque- duct
 Others Like Him.
 You see others like him-white men getting off the trains every day at the platforms, to where the peddlers stand outside the fence, shouting: "A twentyto shot for a dollar" "get that long-shot horse" Inside information for dollar!"
 Many people think it silly to buy lIOSe IHySIeTlOuS envelopes Iull or inside information" Because it that inside information" Is so good why are the peddlers themselves in shabby clothes? Why are they will ing to sell it at all? Why aren't they lounging about the club house verandas in flannels with binoculars at their hips. tipping the stewards with ten spots as every gambler in tends to do when his long shots come home? And why aren't the cus- toners above buying those envelopes after playing few of those 'cer- tain to -win," those absolutely can't miss out on this one" longshots?
 Apparently they don't work much at anything because they are regu- lars at the tracks and a man who really studies the twenty-odd com plicated tables of odds and records and past performances in the daily dope sheets hasn't much attention to devote to job. They seem to have money enough always to get out to the track and buy their admittance to the race course but not enough to have their clothes pressed or to feed well. The closest application to the dope-sheet Is to be seen in the one arm lunch rooms of Broadway where a quarter still buys something to eat.
 The roam complexioned stable boy reached inside his shirt and scratch ed himself dreamily.
 "If Little Chief pays mo off t'day. Ah'm gonna lay me all of it on ruth CT sugar. hawss t'morrow. Aim to get me a real piece O money. 'roun' these met'polttan tracks this sum- mer. Then Ans goin' down t Cuba n play 'em winter tracks"
 The leather was now beginning to look like one of those braided watch fobs.
 NO -o-b buddy knows whut trubble Ah'm in;
 No-o-buddy knows but Jee-sus."