“Return If Possible” – The Mock Funeral for a Runaway Bookmaker

A BOOKIE’S BUNK

Morris Jacobs Missing from Kookynie

The burly form of Morris Jacobs was for long a familiar feature of a Kookynie Hotel billiard room. It has vanished now, and thereby hangs a tale, a tale of woe, for Morris skipped, leaving Kookynie sports lamenting. Months ago Morris opened a book on the Melbourne Cup, and being an honest-looking person whom nobody would suspect of guile, Bill the punter and his kerbstone pals rushed in for a bit of fancy straight-out. Likewise they backed the double. Morris was an obliging chap who recked little about odds; the man that wanted a bet found him right there every time. If fifty quid to half a crown wasn’t good enough about Poseidon and Apologue for the double, well, Morris would make it a hundred just to suit a friend. Three to one Apologue was a rubbishy bet; ” I’ll give yer sixes,” said Morris Jacobs. ” As green as grass,” said Bill the Punter.

But Morris’ popularity ran high; he was the book to make a bet with.

The billiard room was daily besieged by speculative citizens — drapers, grocers, publicans, and blokes from the town — all anxious to “get a bit on” with Morris Jacobs, the Kookynie metallician, the sport who gave the fancy odds. When Cup day came, Morris’ book stood at considerably over two centuries, and he just packed up and lit out for safety. Meandered out through the bush to Niagara and boarded the northern goods train proceeding to Kalgoorlie.

This, briefly, is the story of Morris Jacobs’ slimness — Subsequently a large crowd of outraged sports assembled in Cumberland street to devise ways and means of reaching the absconding Morris. Bill the Punter, who had 35 quid to half a crown Poseidon and Apologue the two Cups, reckoned he’d bash the cove first time he caught him. ” What we want to do now,” remarked Bill the Punter; ” is to get a warrant out for the blanker before he leaves the country.

“Hear, hear,” murmured the concourse approvingly.

Accordingly, a raid was made on the premises of an adjacent J. P., but that astute representative of the law saw difficulties in the way. Betting was an illegal practice, the shorn lambs were out of court, and he couldn’t sign the warrant. The baffled and impotent sports retired to drown their indignation in beer. Where Morris Jacobs is, goodness only knows.

The above ‘Headstone’ was erected in the town, which read:

Sacred to the Memory of Morris Jacobs Aged ???
who departed (suddenly) from this town November 5th CUP DAY
Gone but not forgotten, Requiescant in Goal,
Erected by his sorrowing friends.

The two smaller plaques read:
In the midst of life we are in Debt
&
R.I.P (Return if Possible)