TOTALISATOES AND SWEEPS. 59 



" Leger " had about tliG biggest business in this 

 line, and I have seen a crowd outside his old place in 

 King Street that fairly blocked the road up. 



This '^ tote/' and one or two more, were conducted 

 fairly, but the bulk of them were rank swindles, and 

 the dividends declared were false. 



The evil became so great that the police were at 

 last reluctantly compelled to prosecute. One '' tote ^' 

 man informed me that it cost him a large sum every 

 week to " square '' certain people, and I quite believe 

 him. 



Informers were set to work — men who took 

 tickets and then gave information to the police ; but 

 it took a long time to stamp them out, and this was 

 not wholly accomplished when I left Sydney. Some 

 enormous dividends were occasionally paid on the 

 straight '^ totes/' As, for instance, over £50 in one 

 place for an investment of 10s. — when Correze ran 

 third in Carbine's Cup. As a rule, however, these 

 big dividends on outsiders were appropriated by the 

 " tote '' runners, who, if the public had not backed the 

 horse, put a few tickets on foF themselves, after they 

 knew the result. 



Thousands of pounds went through the hands of 

 these men in the course of a month, and one success- 

 ful *^tote'' man assured me when he dropped the 

 business he had made over £20,000 fairly and squarely 

 in percentages. As he had been at it some years 



