It has been discovered in other countries than
France that the only way to deal with an ineradicable evil is to check
its growth, and an attempt to prohibit pool-selling a year or two ago
in one of the States of this Union only resulted in the adoption of an
ingenious evasion whereby the _pictures_ of the horses entered were
sold at auction--a practice which is, if I am not misinformed, still
kept up. The same fiction, under another form, is to be seen to-day in
France. In order to bet openly one has to buy an entrance--ticket to
the paddock, which costs him twenty francs, whereas the general entry
to the grounds is but one franc, and any one found betting outside the
enclosure or _enceinte_ of the stables is liable to arrest. The police,
no doubt, are willing to accept the theory that a man who can afford to
pay twenty francs for a little square of rose- or yellow-tinted paper
is rich enough to be allowed to indulge in any other extravagant freaks
that he pleases.
But with all the numerous bets that are made, and the excitement and
interest, that must necessarily be aroused, there is nothing of the
turbulent and uproarious demonstration so characteristic of the English
race-course.
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