June 4.
Regrettable though it may ba, there are quite a number of people in Asia and the other Continents Whose interest in the Derby is focussed mainly on the operations which took place at the Royal Oaleutta Turf Club last Saturday night. The rise of the Calcutta Sweep to world wide popularity affords a 1 markable example of the manner in which the imposition of restrictions intensifies human endeavour, Although the figures mentioned in the cables indicate that this year's Sweep has not. quite attained the dimensions of some of its predecessors, the total subscription of £967,000 or thereabouts is quite respectable and is about nine times the size of the Sweep of some seventeen years ago. Then the method of taking part in the gamble was simplicity itself. All that had to be done was to remit the sum of Rs. 10 plus a few annas for postage, with a nom-de-plume to the Secretary of the Turf Club—it was not Royal in those days.
due' course a neatly-printed ticket bearing that nom-de-plume and a rubber-stamped facsimile of the signature of a Club mem ber was acquired. The only: effort made to meet possible objections under the Jaw against public lotteries lay in the cireulation of a private letter to editors of the leading newspapers in India asking them to refrain icing the sweep as it "purely a private altai This request, by the way, was scrupulously honoured for many years until the London press annexed the Sweep as a "news story" and it became quite impossible for Indian newspapers to ignore domestic news cabled to them from outside, But there gradually grew ap the impression that the Club would have to take steps to make the private character of the sweep more definitely e3- tablished. So the practice of receiving subscriptions direct was abolished and it was arranged that tickets could be obtained only by members, This, it was thought, would greatly limit the dimensions of the Sweep. For the first year that may have been the result as it swept away the numerous applications "from the humbler devotees of the Goddess of Chance. Soon, however, the actual effect was to increase the number of tickets bought, The membership of the Club being considerable the change simply meant that each member—involuntarily or otherwise—became a channel for the receipt of subscriptions. Such was the Club's reputation that the fact that the member was legally the real owner of the ticket bearing his name never deterred the outsider from trusting to recover his winnings, should they accrue. Later came another change. Owing to the discovery of a traffic in forged tickets in Eng. land, the Club took the decision to issue no tickets at all and in future to notify the individual members of the numbers of th tickets only. Thus to-day the drawer of one of the numbers for Diolite has nothing to show for his prize except a written statement, possibly by a third party—a friend, a local club or a bank—to the effect that he has drawn that number. Here again the enhancement of the restrictions has, if anything, added to the popularity of the Sweep—mainly because of the confidence reposed in the Club and its members, Another change in the Sweep should be mentioned, apart from the recent trebling of the chances s0 as to reduce the siz of the individual prizes and spread the Sweep over a wider} field, In the old days the allotment of the prizes "made a difference in the value of a starter and a "dead un" (that! is a horse entered for the Derby but not running), for 10 per cent. was divided among starters and 10 per cent. among' no\ starters. The value of the Sweep had reached such a figure that owners were exposed to considerable importunity with the object' of inducing them to start a horse—however unsuitable—at all costs, The Royal Calcutta Turf Club thereupon decided to divide one percentage equally among all unplaced entries—starters and nonstarters alike, Whether there will be any further modifications in the running of this famous sweep remains to be seen. It seems now to be rogue-proof and law-proof and it is dim cult to Possessing the hardihood to deprive the public of that which annually creates thousands of harmless castles in Spain. The popular Press usually manages to get at least one "human story" from the draw with the delightful result of the discovery by "Punch", a year or so ago, that the infallible way to win the Sweep was to be a typist with a widowed mother at Brixton or a merchant captain in the Southern Seas. There are rumours that luck in this year's draw has come the way of someone in Shanghai. Whether that is true or not, it may probably be said with some certainty that, until quite recently, a number of folk. in this Settlement were entitled to turn over in their minds the measures they would take, in the light of the present exchange position, to cope with the receipt of an intimation that the rites in Calcutta on Saturday had been Joyously auspicious their on
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.