The police do something, in occasionally obtaining convictions, and magistrates have strained the interpretation of the word “Place” which occurs in the Act to its very limit—indeed it has only lately (July 1897) been settled that the betting ring at a race course is not a “Place” within the meaning of the Act. A bookmaker, named Dunn, was fined £1 for betting at Kempton Park race meeting. He appealed, and the magistrate’s decision was reversed. The judges inquired into what was the real intention of the Legislature. This is sufficiently apparent from the preamble, which states that “a certain kind of gaming has, of late, sprung up, by the opening of places called betting houses,” and we are justified in assuming that it was this “kind of gaming,” and no other, which Parliament intended to suppress. Furthermore, when once this fact is appreciated, the use of the words “house, office, room, or other place” is no longer misleading, because “place” means something _ejusdem generis_, a “house, office, or room.” It was impossible to maintain that an open race course, or an open enclosure upon a race course, is a “place” of the same kind as a “house, office, or room,” or that the people who use it for betting claim to hold it against all the world, as they would in the case of their own offices. As a rule, the higher class professional bookmakers are a very respectable lot of men, and are scrupulously honest in their dealings, which is more than can be said for some of their clients, even titled ones. Such men as Davis, Steel, and Fry dealt in vast sums, and no matter how hard hit, never once failed to meet their losses; and some of them have died rich. Gully is said to have left about a quarter of a million behind him, Davis’s fortune at his death is variously stated at £50,000 or £150,000, and Swindells died worth £145,000.