Grand National

In Dublin. Biggest lottery in the world is the Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes, held three times a year, in which winners are determined by the running of England's three major horse races. Since 1930, 20 such Sweepstakes have paid out some $170,000,000 in prizes, made some $70,000,000 for Irish hospitals. Last week, four days before England's Grand National Steeplechase at Aintree, Sweepstakes drawings were held in Mansion House, residence of Dublin's Lord Mayor Alfred ("Alfie") Byrne.

Procedure of the draw is simple. For every ticket sold, at $2.50 each, a stub with the buyer's name and address goes to Dublin. The stubs are churned together in a large drum. In another, smaller drum are churned slips of paper on which are written the names of the horses entered in the race. Of the money paid in to the lottery, about 60% goes for prizes. The prize money is divided into units of $500,000. For each unit one ticket-holder's name is drawn from the big drum simultaneously with the drawing of each horse's name from the little drum. When the race is over, holders of tickets on the winner get $150,000 each. Second place ticket-holders get $75,000, third place $50,000.

Holders of tickets on other horses get about $3,000 each, no matter where their horses finish.

Most effective part of the Irish Hospitals Sweepstakes scheme, from the point of view of Ireland, is that it not only sup ports Irish hospitals so luxuriously but does so almost entirely at the expense of the rest of the world. The drawing itself is naturally a Dublin shindig. Last week, as usual, the hall in the Lord Mayor's man sion was appropriately decorated, this time to represent "That Drawn-the-Favorite Feeling," with a stage set representing a Castle of Dreams. When the tickets had been drawn, by Ireland's prettiest young nurses, it was found that, also as usual, a minute proportion of the winners lived in Ireland. Exactly one more than half of all the holders of prizewinning tickets lived in the U. S. Of U. S. ticket holders, half lived in and around New York City.

In New York. To buy a ticket in a lottery which pays only 60-c- on the dollar exhibits strikingly bad judgment. Consequently, an overwhelming majority of SWEEPSTAKES WINNERS BEHRENS . . . most convivial.

Sweepstakes winners are miserable simpletons. Lottery winners of any sort make good newspaper copy. Simpleton winners make even better copy. Last week in New York, which was obviously the place most concerned about Ireland's Sweepstakes and England's horse race, the doings of Sweepstakes winners were recorded by the press with diligence and gusto, as were the doings of British Sidney Freeman of the London bookmakers firm of Douglas Stuart, Ltd. ("Duggie"), who visits the U. S. three times a year, achieves a neat profit for his firm by buying an interest in potentially valuable sweepstakes tickets before the race is run.

Of Greater New York's four $150,000 winners last week, most erudite was a 38-year-old, $2,400-a-year City College psychology instructor named Walter Vogt, whose ticket was signed "Alpha Omega." When reporters arrived to congratulate him on his good fortune, Psychologist Vogt ran upstairs, crawled out on a fire escape, announced he was going for a nickel ride on the subway. Most elusive winner was Betty Fitzgerald, switchboard operator for an importing company whose telephone service was disrupted by reporters whom Operator Fitzgerald refused to see in person. Shaggiest winners were a Mr. & Mrs. John Unseld, German-born proprietors of an Elizabeth, N. J. chicken farm, who had signed their ticket "Happy Easter." Said Farmer Unseld: "Chickens are more bother than they're worth. Maybe I'll build an apartment house. Maybe I'll lease a farm. Maybe I'll go back to Germany. Who knows what I'll do? I'm entirely satisfied." Winners Vogt, Fitzgerald and Unseld had each sold half interest in their tickets to Sidney Freeman.

More fortunate were Joseph Bosco and Percy Wells, middle-aged railroad workers, whose $150,000 prize was intact because they had refused an offer of $15,000 for the ticket before the race was run.

Most convivial U. S. winners were Willie and John Behrens, proprietors of a Brooklyn delicatessen. Although they won only $75,000 with a ticket on the horse that finished second, they spent the day dispensing free beer. Total prizes distributed in last week's Sweepstakes, which took in $14,000,000 amounted to $8.300,000. Of the $4,300,000 which came to the U. S. the Government will get some $1,500,000 in taxes.

At Aintree, Four-and-a-half miles over 30 prodigious jumps with hedges so thick that legend says a man can walk on them, the Grand National is the hardest horse race in the world. Winner by three lengths at odds of 100-to-6 last week was Royal Mail, ridden by Evan Williams and owned by Hugh Lloyd Thomas, charge d'affaires at the British Embassy in Paris. Second was James Rank's Cooleen, third, E. W. W. Bailey's Pucka Belle.

Ordinarily, the Grand National is the No. i magnet of the year for U. S. Anglophiles. This year, because the Coronation outranks it as an attraction, there were fewer Americans than usual in the crowd of 500,000. In the Earl of Derby's box sat King George and Queen Elizabeth, who had the good fortune to bet a pound note on the winner. Feature of the race, which only seven of the 33 starters contrived to finish, was the outrageous behavior of a horse named Drim. Drim unseated his rider, ran on without him, caught up with the leaders, tried persistently to bite them until the race was over when he was caught irately pursuing Royal Mail to the unsaddling enclosure.

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