It was said at the time that the racing associations and the bookmakers had collected a fund of $700,000, and intended to use it in buying enough votes in the convention to defeat the anti-gambling amendment. Who said it? The newspapers. True? Not at all likely. The racing associations were able to raise such a fund, but would have got little assistance from the bookmakers. The latter were an asset of the racing associations and knew it; they must be taken care of. ’Twas said, when Mr. Jerome was at Albany championing the Dowling bill, that the gamblers of New York had contributed $100,000 for the purchase of the Black Horse Cavalry in the Legislature. The press gave Troy as the headquarters of the gamblers’ committee. There was no such committee. The gamblers of New York, including Canfield, who had more at stake than any other gambler, did not contribute a dollar for the purpose of killing the Dowling bill. The latter was passed with surprising ease in Assembly and Senate, and had become a law before the “clever division” had begun to think of the possibility of such a result. This law, in the hands of Mr. Jerome, has proved rather embarrassing to the gambling fraternity, and may give him an opportunity of distinguishing himself in a manner after his own heart before many weeks have passed. The anti-gambling amendment to the Constitution was ratified by a popular majority of nearly 90,000 votes. Some of the voters believed, doubtless, that it would eliminate betting on race-tracks. These forgot that the amendment was of little worth unless the Legislature made such gambling an offense and also made a punishment to fit the offense. The Legislature which followed the adoption of the Constitution was “open to reason.” How much money was required to salve its conscience I do not know, but the manner in which it replied to the demand of the popular vote shows that it was dishonest. By the anti-gambling clause of the Constitution it was ordered to “pass appropriate laws to prevent offenses against any of the provisions of this section.” Instead of obeying such mandate it adopted the Percy-Gray law, which makes gambling in poolrooms a felony and gambling on race-tracks a misdemeanor. In other words, if the keeper of a poolroom takes a bet on a horse race he commits a felony and can be sent to jail, for according to the law he has committed a penal offense, whereas if a bookmaker accepts your money on the same race he does not commit a felony and you are at liberty to publish yourself as a poor sort of creature by attempting to recover your money by civil action. Class legislation? It looks like it. But class legislation is unconstitutional. That is the general opinion, but in this particular case many thousands of dollars have been spent in an effort to discover whether or not the present racing law is unconstitutional, and the dollars have been thrown away.