GAMBLING AND CITIZENSHIP

We laugh ha! ha! We laugh ho! ho! We laugh at their folly and pain.

One by one we miss them, but sure as fate others turn up from time to time, and so the merry game goes on day by day, month by month, and year by year. Yes, the monied sportsman, the retired tradesman, the successful business man combining trade with Turf speculation. Yes, yes, let them be—they can take care of themselves. If they like to lose their coin, well, let them—in fact, they are the bookie’s chief support, his pals, his friends. True, they drop out as I have said, one by one, sooner or later; but what matters, brother bookies? others always crop up in their places, and so we have nothing to fear.

Again, let me say, that it is the impecunious and needy, and poor silly fool of a backer who brings discredit upon the business, together with the host of thieving, impecunious welshing fraternity who dare call themselves bookmakers and Turf commission agents, who, fairly or unfairly, cop or welsh the small backer of his money.

Now, to point out to the said backer more precisely the reasonswhyandhow he cannotpossibly win at backing horses, no matter what plan or system he follows. Let me go a little more into these points, which will or ought to convince him, or at any rate give him matter for serious thought upon the subject.

In the first place, there is what is termed the “law of averages,” by which the backer’s chances to win are for ever against him; that is to say, in nearly every race there are a large number of horses running, otherwise the races are termed non-betting races. Now you back one horse out of say seven or eight running, thus you have at once six or seven chances against your winning. Look how very greatly this works out against the backer when larger numbers of horses are in the race—say 10, 15, 20, and even 30. You back one horse to win, so there are 9, 14, 19, and 29 absolute chances against you, and so on. Never mind about the favourites, the complete outsiders, and so on, there are (and there is no mistake about it) so many absolute chances against your winning, and of course on the other hand so many chances in favour of the bookmaker. But! but! but! listen! ye deluded, cocksure backers! The law of averages against you is nothing to be compared to other and far greater chances against you. I had already written, explained, and set out a number of them, but a newspaper correspondent has very thoughtfully and very carefully embodied them, or some of them, together with others, in a capital letter whichappeared in theSunnewspaper one September, and I cannot do better than set them out. TheSunhas recently permitted a public debate in its columns upon “Is Betting a Sin?” The debate by correspondence has been most interesting. The religious element, of course, dominated with silly arguments, and in so doing “forgot the subject altogether,” whilst on the other hand many letters were strictly to the point, were eye-openers, and logical. The result was announced by the editor, who decided that “he would give it up,”i.e.the correspondence compelled him to say that he could not say whether betting was a sin or not. My candid opinion is that certainly “betting is not a sin,” but Itell you whatit is, it is a pernicious and fascinating vice of the worst kind, and is intimately connected with if not the direct cause of the worst kind of various sins. However, more of this anon. Now to give the letter referred to; it is as follows:—

Odds against the BackerSir—I do not profess to enter into the pro or con of this vital question, which is increasing in force and imperativeness with each succeeding year. But to those of your readers—and I fear they are greatly in the majority—who, in spite of experience, fondly believe that it is possible to make money by backing horses, I append a list of 22 chances against the backer in every race that is run.1. The regular percentage of odds, ranging from 2 to 1 up to 20 against one in every race. There can be only one winner.2. The horse may be fit and capable of winning, but not “wanted.”3. “Wanted” by the owner, not “wanted” by the trainer.4. “Wanted” by owner and trainer, not “wanted” by the jockey, who has his money on another runner.5. Owner, trainer, or jockey in debt to a bookmaker. In either of these three cases the horse runs to suit the layer’s book, irrespective of the backer.6. Horse tried to be a certainty—money on. Something wrong with trial horse. All calculations upset. Again the backer loses.7. Race lost by a bad start.8. Long delay under a hot sun. Horse irritable, nervous, wears himself out at the post.9. Some fractious brute who has no place out of a selling race kicks the “certainty” at the post.10. Jockey disobeys orders, and throws the race away, or goes to sleep.11. Tiny light weight, caught by steel-knit veteran, fails through weakness. More grist to the bookmaker.12. A lends B his best trial horse—say Bluebottle—to try Broomstick. Result of trial makes the race a good thing for Broomstick, but a still better thing for A’s old sprinter, Juggler, who has got in with a light weight. A quietly works a starting price job all over the country, and with Juggler just nips Broomstick on the post.13. Brown lends his crack jockey to ride Jones’s Malaprop, and price shortens. Brown’s money is probably on Gay Deceiver. Jockey obeys orders, and rides Malaprop in Gay Deceiver’s interest.14. Horse certain to win. Stable forestalled at the last moment. Jockey honest. No help for it. Give the colt a nice refreshing drink of water before the start.15. Everything lovely. Mount winning easily, when he stumbles and nearly comes down.16. Jockey makes his effort too late.17. Jockey secretly owner of horse, other than his mount, running in the same race.18. Short sprint. Bad draw for position extinguishes chance.19. Public back the favourite. Stable wins with outsider. See Dieudonne and Jeddah.20. Crowding at a turn. Jockey hopelessly shut in.21. Jockey skilfully shuts himself in. “Couldn’t get through, sir.”22. Horse knocked out of his stride by a cannon during the race.A famous trainer of the old school said, “I have been in this business through a long life; there is little that anybody can teach me in training. I can do all things in this world with a horse except—be inside him.”Sceptic.

Odds against the Backer

Sir—I do not profess to enter into the pro or con of this vital question, which is increasing in force and imperativeness with each succeeding year. But to those of your readers—and I fear they are greatly in the majority—who, in spite of experience, fondly believe that it is possible to make money by backing horses, I append a list of 22 chances against the backer in every race that is run.

1. The regular percentage of odds, ranging from 2 to 1 up to 20 against one in every race. There can be only one winner.2. The horse may be fit and capable of winning, but not “wanted.”3. “Wanted” by the owner, not “wanted” by the trainer.4. “Wanted” by owner and trainer, not “wanted” by the jockey, who has his money on another runner.5. Owner, trainer, or jockey in debt to a bookmaker. In either of these three cases the horse runs to suit the layer’s book, irrespective of the backer.6. Horse tried to be a certainty—money on. Something wrong with trial horse. All calculations upset. Again the backer loses.7. Race lost by a bad start.8. Long delay under a hot sun. Horse irritable, nervous, wears himself out at the post.9. Some fractious brute who has no place out of a selling race kicks the “certainty” at the post.10. Jockey disobeys orders, and throws the race away, or goes to sleep.11. Tiny light weight, caught by steel-knit veteran, fails through weakness. More grist to the bookmaker.12. A lends B his best trial horse—say Bluebottle—to try Broomstick. Result of trial makes the race a good thing for Broomstick, but a still better thing for A’s old sprinter, Juggler, who has got in with a light weight. A quietly works a starting price job all over the country, and with Juggler just nips Broomstick on the post.13. Brown lends his crack jockey to ride Jones’s Malaprop, and price shortens. Brown’s money is probably on Gay Deceiver. Jockey obeys orders, and rides Malaprop in Gay Deceiver’s interest.14. Horse certain to win. Stable forestalled at the last moment. Jockey honest. No help for it. Give the colt a nice refreshing drink of water before the start.15. Everything lovely. Mount winning easily, when he stumbles and nearly comes down.16. Jockey makes his effort too late.17. Jockey secretly owner of horse, other than his mount, running in the same race.18. Short sprint. Bad draw for position extinguishes chance.19. Public back the favourite. Stable wins with outsider. See Dieudonne and Jeddah.20. Crowding at a turn. Jockey hopelessly shut in.21. Jockey skilfully shuts himself in. “Couldn’t get through, sir.”22. Horse knocked out of his stride by a cannon during the race.

1. The regular percentage of odds, ranging from 2 to 1 up to 20 against one in every race. There can be only one winner.

2. The horse may be fit and capable of winning, but not “wanted.”

3. “Wanted” by the owner, not “wanted” by the trainer.

4. “Wanted” by owner and trainer, not “wanted” by the jockey, who has his money on another runner.

5. Owner, trainer, or jockey in debt to a bookmaker. In either of these three cases the horse runs to suit the layer’s book, irrespective of the backer.

6. Horse tried to be a certainty—money on. Something wrong with trial horse. All calculations upset. Again the backer loses.

7. Race lost by a bad start.

8. Long delay under a hot sun. Horse irritable, nervous, wears himself out at the post.

9. Some fractious brute who has no place out of a selling race kicks the “certainty” at the post.

10. Jockey disobeys orders, and throws the race away, or goes to sleep.

11. Tiny light weight, caught by steel-knit veteran, fails through weakness. More grist to the bookmaker.

12. A lends B his best trial horse—say Bluebottle—to try Broomstick. Result of trial makes the race a good thing for Broomstick, but a still better thing for A’s old sprinter, Juggler, who has got in with a light weight. A quietly works a starting price job all over the country, and with Juggler just nips Broomstick on the post.

13. Brown lends his crack jockey to ride Jones’s Malaprop, and price shortens. Brown’s money is probably on Gay Deceiver. Jockey obeys orders, and rides Malaprop in Gay Deceiver’s interest.

14. Horse certain to win. Stable forestalled at the last moment. Jockey honest. No help for it. Give the colt a nice refreshing drink of water before the start.

15. Everything lovely. Mount winning easily, when he stumbles and nearly comes down.

16. Jockey makes his effort too late.

17. Jockey secretly owner of horse, other than his mount, running in the same race.

18. Short sprint. Bad draw for position extinguishes chance.

19. Public back the favourite. Stable wins with outsider. See Dieudonne and Jeddah.

20. Crowding at a turn. Jockey hopelessly shut in.

21. Jockey skilfully shuts himself in. “Couldn’t get through, sir.”

22. Horse knocked out of his stride by a cannon during the race.

A famous trainer of the old school said, “I have been in this business through a long life; there is little that anybody can teach me in training. I can do all things in this world with a horse except—be inside him.”

Sceptic.

What a splendid letter this is! How true indeed are the 22 reasons! What thought each one gives to the backer if he is a sensible man and will but think over them. How we bookies know full well the absolute truth of them, as do also the jocks, trainers, and owners. We have referred in conversation to theSuncorrespondence. What care we for it? It won’t stop the fascinated backer. No fear; we persuade ourselves that nothing will stop him except “running the length of his tether.”

It is almost amusing to read in the newspapers the excuses given by the “Racing Prophets” for the predicted horses “not pulling it off.” Almost daily you will find some of the above reasons given. I have just picked up theDaily Mail. Racing atNottingham is described as “an unsatisfactory affair.” For whom? The bookmakers? Certainly not. For whom then? Why, the backers of course. Then comes the usual and oft-told excuses—amongst others—why such and such a horse didnotwin, as follows:—

Excuse No. 1.—“The well-backed Shot Gun ... threw no resolution into his work.”Excuse No. 2.—“Eileen Violet too ... ran a snatchy race throughout.”Excuse No. 3.—“Reminiscence having missed a race at Newmarket through the imprudence of her jockey in leaving off riding too soon, she yesterday, when heavily backed to square matters, had her chance entirely destroyed by the falling of Lady St. George.”Excuse No. 4.—“The Bestwood Nursery ... demonstrated how fluky was the victory of the Asteria Filly at Newmarket.”

Excuse No. 1.—“The well-backed Shot Gun ... threw no resolution into his work.”

Excuse No. 2.—“Eileen Violet too ... ran a snatchy race throughout.”

Excuse No. 3.—“Reminiscence having missed a race at Newmarket through the imprudence of her jockey in leaving off riding too soon, she yesterday, when heavily backed to square matters, had her chance entirely destroyed by the falling of Lady St. George.”

Excuse No. 4.—“The Bestwood Nursery ... demonstrated how fluky was the victory of the Asteria Filly at Newmarket.”

The above are cuttings from one paper only—we get such excuses to “soothe the backer” almost every day in one paper or another. In a case reported in theDaily Telegraph, the judge of the Clerkenwell County Court made this remark:—

I don’t profess to be any authority on horse-racing, but I know it depends upon what the odds are and what the jockeys have been paid as to which horse wins. (Laughter.)

I guess that judge knows more about racing than he would wish us to believe.

What is the impecunious backer? Why, a fool of the first order. A fascinated idiot. A sharp,flat, and very often a thief,i.e.he steals other people’s money in order to “put it on.” If the above cogent reasons and facts won’t decide him to stop backing, then nothing will, except ruin. Let him carefully think over all I have said. Let him think over his own experience—that’s the thing. Has he made money at backing horses? I mean, in the long run. How much has he lost? That’s the point; let him ask himself the question.

The backer of horses, as a rule, takes to it as a business by which to make money, as in every other business. Every business and profession (for a master man at any rate) is a speculation. Betting is a business, but a speculative and, I should say, the most speculative kind of business there is. There is nothing wrong or sinful in betting. But it is a business so very speculative, so very much against the backer, that, as I hope I have proved, it is a fool’s game, and for business considerations only it is best left alone.

In addition, however, to the reasons before set out, why the backing of horses never will pay any one (let “the sportsman” be never so clever and cunning), there are in addition other and more potent reasons of force. Yes! forcible reasons why therespectableperson should not meddle with it, at least, until the greatest reforms have taken place.

Look, for instance, at the class and character of those regularly participating and taking part in betting pursuits and attending race meetings. Think for a moment who and what the majority are. Iadvisedly say the majority, and I wish to emphasise it. Ask the police; ask the railway people; ask any one who has to come in contact with them. Betting and the race meetings collect together huge assemblies of the lowest and vilest scoundrels on earth—thieves, cheats, ruffians, highwaymen, vagabonds, returned convicts, castaways, ne’er-do-wells, welshers, card-sharpers, tricksters, foul-mouthed quadrupeds, villains, and the worst form of humanity that it is possible to get together—many of them superbly clothed and well dressed—all, all, in some way or other preying upon the thousands upon thousands of the fools of backers in one way or another. This is truth; deny it who can! Can any one name an attraction that draws together one-tenth of this scum of the earth? No; we all know it. Don’t let me be misunderstood, for goodness’ sake! I am not inferring that all who attend race meetings are to be classed in the above frightful category. Certainly not. We have the very best people—the most respectable, the politest of persons, from the highest in the land to the lowliest—in their thousands also; but I should say that for every respectable person there are fifty otherwise.

Every decent sportsman will, I am sure, corroborate my remarks and join me in protesting against the apathy that exists in not clearing the race meetings of the human filth and vile scum and villainy that they now attract. Every respectable bookmaker desires it, for he is a great sufferer in consequence. He goes about in fear and trembling; he has always to be on the alert against assaultand robbery; he has to pay heavy expenses to protect himself, and, above all, his occupation is universally condemned by “society in general” (I mean by those who do not enter into sporting matters) as a low, detestable one, and he is looked upon as a doubtful character, as a pest to society, principally through the doings of the army of scamps I have referred to. A respectable bookmaker sees a welshing job going on—a downright robbery taking place. He sees welshing in its various forms; he would like to expose it and the parties taking part in it, but he positively cannot do so. He must silently acquiesce; he must not on any account open his mouth, or—or what? Why, his life would not be worth two penn’orth of cold gin, as the saying goes.

“Yes,” you say, “how can all this be altered? What is the remedy? Tell the Royal Commission now sitting and inquiring into this subject. They will thank you!” Well, I will answer these questions simply and at once.

1. You must make every race meeting “a place,” and abolish betting there as it is now openly carried on.

Note.—The law as it at present stands is an absurdity. If it is illegal to bet in a house or street, it should be just as illegal to bet at a race meeting or elsewhere. Such a simple alteration of the law would at once sweep away much of the human filth, and be of inestimable benefit to the honourable bookmaker proper. There is no mistake about it; it must be done if the present awful state of affairs is to be done away with.

2. Betting you will never stop; but it can be controlled for the benefit of the community at large, and so you must license the bookmaker. In so doing you must not give a license to any one who thinks fit to apply for one—such as an auctioneer gets his license, or a person keeping a horse or dog gets his. No! no! no! The licensed bookmaker must be a highly respectable man—never been in trouble; and he should be required to deposit in Somerset House or some other Government place a sum of money—say £500 or £1000—to prove his responsibility, which should be attachable for any proved unpaid claim against him. The licensed bookmaker should then be permitted to make bets on the race-course only. His license should be subject to revocation for misconduct.

3. All bets should be in writing, or rather tickets should be given similar to a pawnbroker’s way of doing business, and amounts due to either party should be recoverable at law.

Note.—The suggestions 2 and 3 would, I believe, positively abolish welshing: would be welcomed by all honourable sportsmen, and, above all, would positively purify the various race-courses, and put a permanent stop to the hundred and one forms of abused and nefarious betting which now are rampant throughout the land.

4. A law should be made abolishing clubs, or offices, or houses kept by starting-price bookmakers; and it should be illegal to carry on a betting business either personally, by letter, or by telegram, except on a race-course by a duly licensed bookmaker.

Note.—My brother bookies will open their eyes in abject astonishment at this suggestion, and all kinds of awful anathemas will be heaped upon my poor old anonymous noddle, quite unnecessarily and too soon, for they would soon see that such a step would be to their benefit. Again, be it observed, that unless betting is to be absolutely abolished altogether, the small sportsman, with the harpy, the welshers, and the villains, must be got rid of to make betting a respectable business, and to rid it for ever of the fearful and deserved disrepute that now surrounds it. Well, do away with the stay-at-home S.P. bookmaker, and there is the remedy! All good S.P. men can as well carry on their business at a race meeting as at home; and if they cannot—well, turn it up! Starting-price bookies are the great sinners with the small backer; it is with them that the workman, the clerk, the shopman, the small tradesman—to sum up, the impecunious backer, all go or do business with, and it is principally and mainly with them that the betting is done; it is they who foster small betting, and thus indirectly are the cause of nearly all the disrepute which hangs around betting revealed from time to time in the police courts and in other ways. Abolish the stay-at-home S.P. bookmaker, with clubs, his offices and houses, and the very greatest blessing will at once be conferred upon the bookmakers generally, and upon the community at large. It is positively astounding to think of the thousands of S.P. bookmakers—large and small—mostly small, miserable, moneyless beings, scattered all over the country everywhere; these are the men who do the business with the men and persons who have not the means to and certainly have no right to bet. Do away with this business, and the atmosphere will be enormously cleared.

5. Now something must be said about the newspapers, for they are very great sinners in encouraging small betting. I am, however, more particularly concerned about the small backer, the ruin he brings upon himself and those connected with him, and the discredit he brings also upon the legitimate betting business. The man who can attend the various race meetings, and there can see for himself what is going on, the number of the horses running in a race, the jockeys riding, and knows the odds for and against, is, of course, in a far better position than the stay-at-home backers, or in other words the “small sportsmen” who have neither the means nor the knowledge to bet on horse-racing, and simply do so almost in the dark, on mere chance, or mere newspaper tips, naps, and advice written the day before the race. The morning halfpenny papers, of course, get much of their information from the large daily papers. “Morning betting” has been proved to be (as we of course know) entirely fictitious, and so is much else referring to sporting matters and supposed ante betting. The small stay-at-home sportsman absolutely relies on newspaper recommendations, good or bad, to guide him, and so if the publication of betting prices is prohibited, and also it be made illegal to give “selections,” and to recommend any horse or horses to bet upon, the “good thing of the day,” “to back it win and place,” and the many other ways in which backing horses is publicly and openly and in many cases suspiciously advised and recommended, is made illegal and prohibited, such a step would be welcomed by the good bookmaker,would cut away much nefarious doings, and would confer a lasting benefit on the small backer in general, although possibly he might not at first see it. There need not be anything to prevent the usual reports of race meetings, including the betting thereat, with the starting prices and the usual reports of horses entered for the various races, with their chances of winning; that is all right enough, but it is the wanton and mischievous system of “selections,” “naps,” and recommendations to bet that does the harm to the small backer, and to racing in general.

Another matter is that “tipsters’” advertisements should be entirely suppressed. Of course many of the large daily papers refuse them altogether. Unfortunately, however, they are permitted in other papers. How any person with a grain of sense can send coin to any of these advertising tipsters is a marvel to me. Still they flourish on fools’ money. Read through the said advertisements and form your own opinion. Let any sensible person put it to himself. If these tipsters are so sure, why don’t they themselves back their predictions, and secure the easy fortunes they advise others to get?

Turf commission agents’ and Turf accountants’ advertisements should also seriously be revised. I am, of course, not condemning the well-known firms doing business under the above designation, but for every safe, respectable man there are many “wrong uns,” so the only plan seems to be to seriously revise the advertisements, or reject them altogether. Besides, every one knows that the descriptions areincorrect. What is a Turf commission agent? What is a Turf accountant? Generally a “starting-price bookmaker.” But such descriptions are also used by suspicious persons having no genuine occupation of the kind, simply to hide their identity. Thus my suggestion will be, I am sure, welcome to thebona fidefirms.

The Jockey Club do not now settle betting disputes, nor do they openly countenance “betting.” The races aresupposedto be run on the same lines as athletic sports are conducted, viz. the prizes offered of themselves are expected to be of sufficient value to induce owners of horses to compete. Oh, what a big farce! Of course, many of the wealthy owners keep race-horses solely for the sport and honour of winning races, and do not care a fig for betting, whilst of course, on the other hand, a vast number of owners of horses look to betting as the means to recoup their heavy expenses, and to “win a bit” besides—in many instances vainly so—for it is admitted all round that owning race-horses is a very expensive sport, and can only be indulged in by persons having “lots of coin.” It is, however, quite impossible to disassociate horse-racing from betting. Stop the betting at race meetings—give prizes only—and what would be the inevitable result? Why, the race meetings would almost cease to take place.

Now, to all interested in a business way with racing, viz. the race-course company, the trainer, the jockey, the bookmaker proper, the newspaper proprietor, and many others, it must be apparent,that unless something soon takes place, legally, to “clear the course,” and to prevent betting by small impecunious backers, that an Act of Parliament will be passed to stop betting on horse-racing altogether. Make no mistake, it will assuredly come, unless the small sportsman who has no means to speculate in betting is got rid of. It is the small backer who really has caused and is causing all the mischief. It is he who supports the host of vagabonds and thieves I have referred to, and so, in conclusion, I sincerely hope and trust that all my respectable brother bookies will take all I have said in good meaning, and as being written for the best. Let them unite with me to bring about the reforms hinted at in this scribble. I have pointed out, I think, clearly to the small backer that in backing horses he can but lose his money. Let the thousands of them all over the country seriously consider, with common sense, the remarks I have made, then I am certain that they will “turn up the game.” Leave betting to those with money to rashly speculate, and then the small, petty sportsman will do himself a good turn, and would very much oblige the legitimate bookmakers, who would then cease to designate him “The Deluded Sportsman.”

Finally, I am egotistical enough to say that if the alterations and reforms I have sketched out above are resorted to, that the Turf scandals which so frequently take place would not and could not arise.

ByJ. Ramsay MacDonald

The devotees of the Goddess of Fortune are found in all societies, from the Kaffir tribe to the sensuous coteries of our own civilisation. The moment of uncertainty which lapses between the casting of the dice and the discovery of the result, between the dealing of the cards and the examination of the hand, between the starting of the ball and its settlement in a pocket, is an alluring experience which rules conduct in proportion to the weakness of the moral character and the disorganisation of the intellectual life. The unknown must always have a fascination for men, and that fascination, centred on trivial things and joined with cupidity, marks the low state of intelligence and morals in which gambling flourishes.

Almost every observer to-day agrees that betting has reached colossal proportions and is still increasing. At the street corner, in the newsagent’s and tobacconist’s shop, in the barber’s saloon, in the club, in the public-house, in the factory, the bookmakeror his agent is ready to receive the money of men, women, and children, and victims of the habit are at hand to lead astray the novices still uninitiated in the worship of the seductive goddess.

The chief characteristic of the present outburst of the gambling habit is that it is becoming a class disease. People of experience seem to be pretty much agreed that those living on the marginal line of poverty and those on the marginal line of respectability are specially liable to fall victims to the habit. Both of these classes have in common a feeling that their lives are profoundly unsatisfactory. The dreary drudgery of the life of a wage-earner who oscillates between 15s. and 25s. a week, with an occasional turn of nothing at all; the unsatisfied craving in the life of a man too proud to take his place amongst the working classes but too poor and despised to be received in professional ranks—can only lead astray those doomed to them.

To both of these marginal groups the mental excitement and pecuniary allurements of “trying their luck” are almost irresistible, and, though they join in nothing else and in every other respect are poles asunder, they go together to throw their coppers before Fortuna lest haply she may return them favours an hundredfold.

That, I take it, is the most significant feature of the present spread of gambling. It is the evidence of social failure showing itself in the conduct of social groups or classes. It therefore flourishes with other disquieting symptoms, such as the inordinate love of spectacular effect, the demand for mereamusement, the distaste for serious and strenuous effort, the spread of drunkenness—all pointing to a poverty of personality, a bareness of the inner chambers of the mind, occurring in such a way as to indicate that we are faced not merely with the moral breakdown of isolated individuals but with the results of a serious failure on the part of society. We have to deal not merely with individual lapses but with a social disease. From that point of view this paper is written.

Much has been written upon the gambling motive, and I am not sure that the final word has yet been said upon it. Certainly the simple explanations of it as a “sin” do not meet the facts of the case. Avarice does not explain it, because the avaricious do not risk fortunes on the turn of a wheel or the tip of a stableman. And yet avarice enters into the gambler’s character. The pleasure of possessing does not explain it, because if every gambler were to be made as rich as Crœsus he would gamble the more. I am inclined to believe that the workman gambles to charmennuiaway from his doorstep, and having begun he goes on partly in the hope that he will recoup himself for his losses, partly to continue keepingennuiaway. Roughly, the same motives influence the other gambling class—the clerks and the other wage receivers who would fain believe that they are paid “salaries.”[2]

But the particular character of the disease which is bred by the social circumstances of these classes is determined by the law of imitation. As we used to imitate Milan in our millinery and Paris in our dresses, so for our habits there is a class to which we look. If those habits are of the nature of luxuries, we borrow and adapt them from the luxurious classes, and having thus become indebted to these classes we associate our wellbeing with theirs. A parasitic feeling is engendered, and this feeling in turn strengthens the original motive which started us upon our imitative course. Thus we move downwards in a vicious spiral. We must therefore trace the vigour of the present gambling disease not merely to the failure of society to satisfy the appetite forlifegnawing unsatisfied at the hearts of whole classes, but to the active existence elsewhere in the same community of sections of idle rich.

Gambling is a disease which spreads downwards to the industrious poor from the idle rich. In its most common form, betting on horse-racing, it is the only way in which the outcast plebeians can be joined with their betters in a bond of freemasonry. An elevating knowledge of distinguished jockeys and an exhilarating acquaintance with the pedigree of horses raise the poor parasite to the level of the rich one and make them both men and brothers. One has to go to some famous horse-racing event to appreciate fully the meaning and the force of this.

Consequently, we should expect theoretically to find the gambling habit amongst the poor break out into chronic virulence at a time when the idle richhad received some sudden accession in strength, and when they were blazing forth into a new brilliance of vicious habit. Is not that the case to-day? Did not the serious spread of gambling downwards coincide with a renewal of the splendours of our non-productive, luxurious rich?

Within recent years this class has undoubtedly increased in power, and with that, as has always happened in history, its morals have been degraded. Those who ought to know tell us that not since the days when Brooke’s was in its glory and Frederick was waiting with impatient anxiety for the death of his demented parent, George III., was gambling so prevalent and personal vice so common in society as it is to-day. I have heard on most excellent authority of several thousands of pounds changing hands during an after-dinner game of bridge, at a house which was not the haunt of prodigals, and amongst people who would be insulted if they were called gamblers; certain circles of men and women not very far removed from the centre of political life, who a few years ago spent their spare energies in investigating the mysteries of theosophy and dabbling in the weird, have now turned with absorbing interest to the ubiquitous card game, and guests who do not join in the gamble—often the swindle—find themselves unprotected by the manners which held a guest as sacred.[3]

The sudden flood of easily gotten wealth which came mainly as a result of the exploitation of SouthAfrica, and also partly in consequence of the financier acquiring control of trade by the development of the large over-capitalised syndicate, has not only created a new Park Lane, anouveau richeand therefore a vulgar one, but has brought in its train a low personal and social morality, and has created in our society purple patches of decadence which can be placed alongside the rotting luxuriance of the Roman Empire. It was so in France when Law’s financial schemes set everybody dreaming of an age of gold and paper money; it was so with ourselves when the South Sea Bubble was being blown up; it will always be so under like circumstances. The influence spreads from one end of society to the other. It colours our newspapers. The tinsel spectacle excites the imagination of the common man or woman. Our charities and philanthropies hang upon the trains of luxurious vulgarity.[4]In a subtle way the grossness at the top percolates through to the bottom, and the plebeian in his own special heavy-footed style dances to the same sensuous tune to which the feet of his betters are more daintily tripping. From the vicious social conditions at the top the gambling impulse finds its way to the bottom. Imitation of the upper classes, even in the most democratic of societies,—and ours is far from that,—continues to have an important influence in the life of the people. Such is the origin of the disease. We must now consider some of its effects.

If gambling comes from a poisoned source, it poisons the life with which it is in touch. Other writers in this volume are dealing with the personal and family disasters for which it is responsible. I confine my attention to its influence upon citizenship, upon the persons upon whose intelligence and character rests the fabric of the State and the community.

The gambling disease is marked by a moral and intellectual unsettlement, by an impatience with the slow processes of legitimate accumulation, by a revolt against the discipline of steady growth and sustained action. The gambler lives in a state of unnatural strain. Like an insane person, he stands on the threshold of a grandiose world the high lights of which throw the sober realities of the real into shadow. Moreover, his vice develops the self-regarding instincts into hideous and criminal proportions. What is all this but saying that it cuts away the roots of good citizenship. For good citizenship depends upon a moral discipline which enables a man to pursue, undisturbed by outward event, calm amidst storms of fortune, some desirable social end; it is dependent upon the development of the social conscience in the individual; it flourishes only when men seek after the more solid gains which come from honest work and faithful endeavour. The people to whom the gains of life are but the prize-winnings of a game of hazard,who flock to spectacles, whose sports consist of looking on whilst professionals display their prowess, are but decaying props of State.

Individualists would make us believe that citizenship is not part of personality, for otherwise their antithesis of manversusthe State would be inconceivable. But the antithesis is purely verbal, and does not in reality exist. Man’s personality is complex, but it is a unit; his public and private actions may be many sided, and for a time may spring from opposing moral sources, but in the end their exercise blends the opposing sources and changes the individuality. For instance, no people can rule itself democratically at home and govern other peoples autocratically abroad. The home democracy in time becomes tainted. The moral sources of one system become blended with the polluted sources of the other. And so it is with the character of the man and the citizen. The citizen cannot act contrary to the man.

One need hardly trouble to appeal to history to prove these statements. A parallel between our present state of society, rotting with luxury and intoxicated with excitement, and the Roman Empire in the days of its decline is on every moralist’s lips and is becoming hackneyed. Philip of Macedon, it is said, encouraged gambling amongst the Greeks, on the ground that it corrupted their minds and made them docile under his rule. From time to time in our own country the gambling mania has become chronic, the last of these outbursts being about a century ago, when Brooke’s andWhite’s stripped their foolish victims, and when the flick of cards was heard throughout the abodes of fashion. Of that time Sir George Trevelyan writes:—

The political world, then as always, was no better than the individuals who composed it. Private vices were reflected in the conduct of public affairs; and the English people suffered, and suffers still, because, at a great crisis in our history, a large proportion among our rulers and councillors had been too dissolute and prodigal to be able to afford a conscience.[5]

The gamblers were in power. There was plenty of party but little politics, and what politics there was was largely an art of recouping gaming losses from the public purse. Public life was saved only by the political overthrow of the gambling aristocracy. Fox, possessing though he did a genius which could throw off the taint of his circumstances, failed mainly owing to his lack of steadiness, dignity, prudence, and industry,[6]and these were precisely the deficiencies which his gambling habits would accentuate. They are the moral and intellectual results of gambling, and follow it as inevitably as gout follows wine-bibbing.

Those of us who fail to see any road leading to a desirable state of society save the political one, those who still believe that democracy is the only form of government under which men can enjoy the blessings of full citizenship, those who consider thatin spite of the likes or dislikes of ruling classes government tends to depend more and more upon the sanction of the common people and thus becomes an ever more accurate reflection of their character, can view only with alarm the rapid spread of gambling habits amongst the masses. Where these habits prevail the newspaper, which should be the guide of the citizen, is read not for its politics but for its tips, for the racing news printed in the “fudge,” not for the subjects it discusses in its leader columns, and so is degraded to being the organ of the bookmaker. This does not merely mean an extension of its sporting columns, but a revolution in its tone and its staff, in response to what really becomes a revolution in its functions. Men who are too weary to think, too overworked to attend political meetings or take positions of responsibility in their trade unions, can nevertheless speak authoritatively about the pedigree of an obscure horse and the record of a second-rate footballer.

This, like all other backward steps to a lower stage of moral effort, is easy. For social conduct is the inheritance of complicated experiences, retained only by sleepless vigilance, and exercised by the subordination of the individual will to the social conscience. It is therefore comparable to those high forms of chemical compounds built up of many atoms but exceedingly unstable. The simple presence of a disturbing element shatters the compound and reduces it to its primitive atoms. Man’s self-regarding and primitive instincts areconstantly threatening to disjoint his social character and defeat all movements depending upon that character for their success. To hope, for instance, that a labour party can be built up in a population quivering from an indulgence in games of hazard is folly. Such a population cannot be organised for sustained political effort, cannot be depended upon for legal support to its political champions, cannot respond to appeals to its rational imagination. Its hazards absorb so much of its leisure; they lead it away from thoughts of social righteousness; they destroy in it the sense of social service; they create in it a state of mind which believes in fate, luck, the irrational, the erratic; they dazzle its eyes with flashing hopes; they make it, in other words, absolutely incapable of taking an interest in the methods and the aims of reforming politicians. They lay it open to the seductions of the demagogue, to the blandishments of the hail-fellow-well-met type of candidate, to the inducements of the common briber, to the flashy clap-trap of the vulgar and the ignorant charlatan. And the discovery that such classes exist in the community will very soon be made, and the whole tone of public life lowered to suit their tastes. It is not without serious significance that in recent elections one of the most common forms of argument (sometimes used by both sides) has been an offer by the candidates to back up statements they had made by sums of money. “It is not so much,” says Loria, the eminent Italian sociologist, “the personality of the elected as the character of theclass which elects that really counts.” I do not say that this is to lead to rapid and irretrievable ruin. Rome bore the burden of a luxurious and gambling class of citizens for centuries. But I do say that the spread of the gambling habit is one of the most disquieting events of the time for those particularly who believe in self-government and in an intelligent democracy using its political power to secure moral and social ends. Every labour leader I know recognises the gambling spirit as a menace to any form of labour party.

I have, finally, to consider what good citizenship has to say to gambling, and how it proposes to deal with the matter.

We must remember that this, like so many other vices, is only a degraded and degrading form of expressing a natural human need. Indulgence in gambling is universal in primitive society, where it is closely associated with religion, and at no time is it absent from the larger and more absorbing transactions of civilised life. It is intimately connected with the dominating type of will and the unflinching determination of men to control. The gigantic strides which the United States have made in industry have been possible only because the Americans have not flinched in facing enormous hazards. This spirit finds apt expression in the verse of that romantic embodiment of the love of hazard, the Marquis of Montrose—

He either fears his fate too much,Or his deserts are small,Who does not put it to the touch,Or gain or lose it all.

He either fears his fate too much,

Or his deserts are small,

Who does not put it to the touch,

Or gain or lose it all.

In the evolution of the race an important part has no doubt been played by the men and the communities whose self-confidence was sufficiently strong to enable them to make large drafts upon the unknown. Abnormally and respectably—as in the form of genius—this spirit gives us “the man of destiny”; abnormally but not respectably—as in the form of burglary—this spirit gives us the high criminal. Normally, properly controlled and toned, it gives us the successful man of business, the leader and inspirer of men. This playing with the unknown in the faith that the fates are favourably disposed has undoubtedly been, and is still to be, a very important spur to energy, and one of the determining factors in national survivals in the future. Indeed, it is inseparable from human nature. Men will not tolerate a uniform drudgery, they will not live in a world which is nothing but a featureless expanse. And this intellectual appetite for risk, for projecting one’s self on to the silent stream of fate upon which the barque of life mysteriously floats, must be satisfied either legitimately or illegitimately, either in accordance with sound morals or in the teeth of sound morals. The latter will be the case if we condemn, as we do now, large sections of our population to conditions of life from which their intellectual nature can get no satisfaction. The appetites of that nature will not die away. Itsfunctions will not atrophy and degenerate. It will simply accommodate itself to its circumstances. If it cannot command the food of the gods, it will fill its belly with the husks which the swine do eat, and find a troubled satisfaction in its degradation. “To be confined in the dark, or without occupation, is to be made the victim of subjective tedium,” says Bain.[7]We have confined our people in the dark, and they are gambling to break the tedium.

Consequently, when we consider the responsibilities of citizenship for the spread of the gambling disease with a view to devising some cure, we shall have to begin by assuming that prohibitive Acts will not carry us very far. We can stop bookmakers or their agents receiving bets in the public streets or any public place; we can turn them off race-courses and refuse to recognise any enclosure as sanctuary. We can even go further, and prosecute any one who receives from another betting payments on any event whatever. This last would be going very far—too far, perhaps, to be practical. But at any rate we could prohibit the receipt of money from children. We could also stop the publication of betting news, and our Post Office could refuse to transmit circulars encouraging the gambling appetite.[8]We might even combat successfully the much more difficult problem of how to prohibit gambling at church and chapel bazaars.But, when we have done all that, we have not gone very far. We have simply restored life to its old, dull, monotonous drab, and we have turned the natural instincts which the gambling habit satisfies from feeding at one trough to find husks in another. To the great mass of the people we shall but appear to be smug Pharisees, and a reaction will set in which in its aggressive strength will play much greater havoc than even the steady growth of the disease before it was challenged. Time after time the failure of the reform campaigns of outraged respectability in America has taught this simple lesson in moral politics. One cannot devastate and then say, “Behold the good!” The gambling habit must be elbowed out, not stamped out.

I would be exceeding the purposes and limits of this paper did I attempt to sketch a programme of reforms which in my opinion would do the elbowing. I can only indicate the skeleton of such a programme, and I do so, not so much to urge my readers to accept it, as to emphasise that the attack upon the gambling habit can be successful only if it is positive and constructive, and not merely negative and prohibitory.

When we try to get to the root of our social vices of to-day we ultimately find ourselves contemplating the sad effects of the steady stream of population away from the green meadows on to the grey pavements. Overcrowding in the towns and dilapidation in the villages are the result. At best, under existing conditions there must always be a fringe of our city population living from hand tomouth, contracting the character of the casual and the loafer. But this fringe is made much broader by the present urban immigration; the tarnished threads in it are of finer quality than they would be otherwise, and the original excellence of some of its stuff makes it all the more prone to vices of certain kinds. The problem which good citizenship has to solve then, it seems to me, is twofold. It has to discover how people can be induced to stay on the land, and how, in towns, they can be provided with proper surroundings. The only hope of a rural population in England is the spread of intensive cultivation and of co-operative agriculture,[9]and that again can hardly become general until our present system of landlordism is broken up and public authorities own the land and let it to suit the convenience of cultivators.

The town problems must be solved by a combination of public and private associated effort. We must give up all hope of private owners being able to supply decent houses at reasonable rents. The municipality should become the sole housing authority within its own area, and where it spreads out its arms of tramways beyond its own boundaries it should be able to develop building estates on its lines of communication. With a housing and tram policy should be combined a recreation policy, for it is the lack of recreation in modern city life which leads to so many vicious indulgences. Parks, music, museums, libraries, hardly touch the needs of theworkman no longer on the sunny side of thirty-five, wearied after a day’s work. The public-house or the workman’s club is his resort.

Here we come to the centre of our difficulty. We cannot meet the needs of the average workman who is not a teetotaller unless we place the public-house under public control. This seems to me to be the first step, not only towards national temperance, but towards the provision of that rational amusement which is to protect our industrial population from vicious allurements.[10]

But when all these facilities for an intellectual life have been provided, they will be in danger of being neglected unless the people who are supposed to benefit by them are led to pursue worthy human ideals. The appreciation of the worthy is an inward quality. Here we come to the saving grace of political convictions, the purifying effect of citizen ideals. An immunity from anti-social indulgences depends upon the general diffusion through society of an active desire for social improvement by democratic means. This acts in two ways. It first of all quickens the social conscience and the moral pride of the common man, and it also safeguards him from imitating the vices of the worthless upper classes, which, without the opposition of a strong democratic spirit, become the models for the recreation and amusement of the masses.

Hence, turning once more for a moment to consider the causes which have led to the presentslackening of moral fibre, I find one of the most important to be the loss of the democratic fervour which characterised the people during about three-quarters of the nineteenth century. The people have lost taste for politics. The generous enthusiasms of 1848 are criticised by the aged youth of our schools to-day as having been over-sentimental and mere dreams. At any rate, they gave us sound literature—Tait’sEdinburgh Magazine, Chambers’sPapers for the People, Cassell’sPopular Educator; they laid the foundations of a most important part of democratic education in the Mechanics’ Institutes; they gave birth to a self-reliant generation of working men. Until citizenship, radiantly setting out towards the splendour of a perfected humanity, attended by a train of the beatitudes which the heart and mind of man have been ever seeking, commands the allegiance and the services of our people, the crowd, obedient to the necessity to worship imposed upon it by its nature, will bow to false gods; and men, obedient to their intellectual promptings to dally occasionally in the temple of Fortuna, will do so in the gross, the only, way which is at present possible for them.

ByJohn Hawke

When the intelligent public has become convinced of the existence of a great social evil, it wants to know, in the first place, what laws are in existence which can be applied in remedy of it, and what amendments of the law are needed.

The text-books upon the present laws, through no fault of their authors, are somewhat obsolete, owing to recent not altogether consistent decisions of the Courts, althoughLaw Relating to Betting, by G. H. Stutfield, andLaw of Gambling(Coldridge and Hawksford), contain much valuable information. The following summary is intended to present a skeleton view of the legal position at this date, and for sake of convenience the subject is divided under the two heads of Miscellaneous Gambling and Betting. Whichever portion of the subject is treated, it will be observed that the laws are both inadequate and not fully applied.

Miscellaneous gambling must be subdivided into (M) all kinds of individual gaming unconnected with trade; (N) gambling in the stock, produce, and other markets.

(a) Illegal Games; (b) Card Playing.—The old-time absurdity of making certain games illegal, because they were the ones chiefly used as vehicles for gambling and left little room for skill, seems to have resulted in throwing upon the Courts the difficult task of deciding what other games come near enough to this class to share their disabilities, and to have culminated in shaping the law in a direction very unfortunate for public morality, so as to present a modicum of skill as a sufficient leaven to create immunity for a very large element of chance. The gambler avoids, as a rule, the named illegal games and turns to others. Blackstone remarks upon his infinite shifts and the varieties of his expedients, so that to pass laws especially applying to some games only merely drives him into other courses.

The true principle is that no game in itself is illegal, but that the gambling upon it may be. While the present laws make special regulations and enforce specific penalties upon certain games, others which may easily be as noxious cannot be dealt with. Consequently we have spasmodic andpartial attempts to enforce the law, and a series of enigmatic and conflicting decisions in the Courts, resulting in a chaotic state of affairs in which little check is put upon gamblers.

(c) Playing with Gaming-Machines.—Notwithstanding that roulette is an illegal lottery, it is an unhappy fact that of late years it has been much more played than formerly. An inspection of tradesmen’s catalogues, and a glance round the departments at the stores, tends to confirm the impression that it and like games are becoming much more common. A member of the Bar who many years ago took the silk gown, and who was known to be averse to gambling, although going a good deal into society, has noticed how often the green cloth appears not long after dinner, sometimes after a postponement until he and those of like mind are about to leave. Its public use may have been put down, but in private houses and in clubs the roulette-table has multiplied its numbers. Here again, in connection with gaming-machines, corruption has spread and gone lower down. The automatic machines, at first used for the sale of sweetmeats, have been altered so as to be made the vehicles of gambling amongst the poorer classes, and especially children. They have already done irretrievable harm. Investigating the subject in the East End of London, the writer of these lines was told by a responsible person that they had taken such a hold upon the young that, while in classes of poor boys comparatively little difficulty was found in obtaining pledges not to drink andsmoke, much reluctance has been evinced with regard to promises to give up petty gambling. Upon one occasion a bright boy flatly declined to add such a pledge to others, saying that he could not give up the excitement of using his coppers in this way. Most of the police prosecutions have been successful, and fines have been imposed under sec. 44 of the Police Act; while the machines were without hesitation pronounced to be illegal upon licensed premises. It may be hoped that the latest decision inFieldingv.Turnerin the Divisional Court will go far towards stopping their use for gambling, now that they can be confiscated. So serious a matter had they become that the Home Secretary has promised to strengthen the law if need be. But the eagerness with which the temptation they offer has been responded to by the poorest of children should be a warning to the authorities against the old looseness of interpretation in the matter of laws against gambling. For children, at least, the old nonsense about skill and chance should be entirely swept away, and severe penalties enforced against all those who tempt the young in this manner. If not, the growing generation will be worse in gambling than the present one, and instead of a nation with a large minority devoted to the vice, it will develop into a general habit in which the majority are involved in one form or another.

(d) Lotteries and Sweepstakes.—Lotteries are matters of pure chance, which have been gradually restricted by a long series of statutory enactments; and in 1823 the last form, that of the publiclottery, was abolished, the sole remaining exception being the ones connected with Art Unions, which have since been discontinued. Lotteries were found to be debauching the public and affording opportunities for fraud, but have not been wholly got rid of, as they are still carried on in connection with charity bazaars and in the form of sweepstakes, chiefly held upon horse-races. These latter, when subscribed privately and in clubs, are winked at by the authorities, but fitful prosecutions against publicans and others are heard of from time to time. Bazaar raffles, “fish-ponds,” etc., are no less illegal lotteries than sweepstakes under the Lottery Acts; they come within the provisions of 12 Geo. II. c. 28. It has, unfortunately, become customary for the authorities to take no action when raffles are held for charitable purposes, but all the churches of late years have been condemning the practice, and it is coming to be looked upon as a disreputable one, so that the law might now be enforced without any serious conflict with popular sentiment. It should be enough for clergy and ministers, however, to know that in the strict eye of the law those who have anything to do with bazaar raffles are rogues and vagabonds, if this is necessary to supplement the consideration that true religion must lose more than it gains by proceedings which have frequently involved the first step taken by the young in the paths of hazard, and led them into a career marred by misery if not crime. The existing statutes do not give the Post Office authorities sufficient powers for the detection anddestruction of lottery matter; and the protection of newspapers advertising lotteries by 8 & 9 Vict. c. 74, making the fiat of the Attorney-General necessary for prosecutions, is considerably abused.

(e) Press Competitions and Coupon Gambling.—This is a most serious branch of the evil, for which the press is very largely responsible. Its grossest manifestation occurred some years ago in connection with horse-racing and football playing. Unfortunately, some years prior to this, in 1895, a judgment inStoddartv.Sagar, the scope of which was mistaken by the public authorities, was held to rule the pernicious system outside of both the Lottery Acts and of the Betting House Act of 1853, and the question was neglected, with the consequence that the system grew to such an extent that in the year 1900 it was brought prominently before the council of the National Anti-Gambling League. Upon investigation they found, amongst other flagrant instances, the case of an obscure so-called sporting paper, the circulation of which had been raised by means of these coupons to 100,000 a week. At the trial of the proprietor, evidence was given on behalf of the General Post Office that the letters with remittances were so numerous as to necessitate a special delivery amounting to 20 sacks weekly. By evidence given by the London and Westminster Bank it was shown that £63,680 was paid in to the account of these valued customers in the first six months of 1900; and the prizes paid away to successful gambling competitors had risen fromover £10,000 in 1897 to over £27,000 in 1898; over £47,000 in 1899; and to September only of 1900, to £46,000. It was not merely a penny or a shilling gamble, as any number of penny lines could be filled in in the coupon, and any number of coupons could be used by the same person, special directions being published in the paper to save those competitors trouble who were dealing in a large number, so that hundreds of pounds could be arranged for in a few minutes, and cheques remitted. The receipts of this one establishment in postal orders, etc., were shown to amount to £2000 to £3000 a week. The prize for the Lincoln Handicap of 1900 was £3000. The Courts unanimously decided that these coupon schemes came within the scope of the Betting House Act of 1853. This was confirmed in later cases in the King’s Bench Division and Appeal Court, and the judgments incidentally comprised the most valuable decision,that deposits to betting-houses were none the less such if received indirectly, and not at the premises. One loophole was left. The 1853 Act may not apply to betting-houses abroad. The proprietors moved their offices across the Channel, continuing their advertisements in the low sporting papers, and these were even admitted to otherwise respectable prints, tempted presumably by the higher rates shown in Court to be paid for this class of advertisement. An attempt was subsequently made in prosecutingThe Sportsmanto put a stop to this, but the King’s Bench Division held that section 7 of the 1853 Act relating toadvertising could not be considered to cover these advertisements, although the judges expressed their regret, and the Lord Chief Justice laid stress in his judgment upon the necessity for legislation.

As matters stand there are two difficulties, viz. (1) betting-houses abroad (they are generally kept by British bookmakers who have moved across the Channel) are probably outside the scope of the 1853 Act, although their business is done by attracting the custom of the British public by advertisements in our newspapers and receiving bet deposits through our Post Office; and (2) the advertisements in question are so worded as to evade the precise terms of section 7 of the 1853 Act, so that the conniving newspapers cannot be punished. The consequence is that the nefarious business is carried on from offices abroad, and will be until stopped by a new Act. Cheating by the proprietors was common enough at the offices in the United Kingdom, but has greatly increased now that they are more out of the reach of their dupes, and some of them are being prosecuted by the police for fraud, for which extradition can be obtained, at the present time. This, however, will not stop the gullible public from sending their postal orders in myriads to other establishments; and its not being a criminal offence to publish in British newspapers, etc., advertisements of foreign betting-houses is one of the defects of existing legislation.

In addition to the above, however, organs of our low-class press, and other journals which might be expected to maintain some ethical standard,have been competing with each other in offering so-called prizes, frequently of high value, for all sorts of competitions, some depending much upon chance, and others cleverly disguised; the latter, unfortunately, penetrating to homes where the very thought of betting would be a scandal. Much demoralisation has been caused by the system, and the laws are inadequate to deal with many of its subterfuges.

The Government of France has set an example to ours of prompt action, although the evil there is an infant one as compared with ours, out of which indeed it has arisen, thus adding one more to the responsibilities of our nation for its gambling laxity. The occasion which aroused the ire of the authorities of our neighbours was the distribution byLe Petit Parisienof £24,000 in prizes for guessing the number of grains in a certain-sized bottle of wheat. The excitement was such that in ten days the circulation of the paper more than doubled, and special shops were opened in Paris and other large towns for the sale of bottles resembling the sealed one in question.

(f) Gambling Clubs.—Habitual gambling in the social clubs of wealthy Englishmen has led to a very anomalous state of the law and of its application. It is not worth while to go further back than the case ofDownesv.Johnson(Albert Club) to illustrate this. There was no serious dispute as to this not being a betting club, or that the purpose of its existence was not betting. No reasonable person could for a moment doubt that if betting werestopped the club would collapse, and the police authorities in 1895 made an attempt to bring about this result. They had good reason for knowing the evil arising from it. That provisions could be obtained, and were consumed in considerable quantities, was shown; but any serious contention that such a club was a social club would be dispelled by a visit to the premises, in an obscure court turning out of Fleet Street. The judges, however, appeared to be hampered by a desire to shield private betting, and the judgment remains the charter for organised house betting under the protection of the name of club. There are several other such large institutions in London and elsewhere (besides innumerable smaller ones), the chief of those in the metropolis being notorious gambling centres, where settling day is carried on in the same business-like way as on the Stock Exchange. They all owe their continued existence to the reluctance of the Courts and Parliament to deal with the card and Turf gambling which goes on at the well-to-do clubs, and thousands of gambling centres all over the country are shielded by this unhappy partiality.

The above decision may be said to have broken up any efficiency of existing legislation, and so pernicious has its effect been that a very modest attempt to reduce the number of the poorer class institutions was at last introduced as a makeshift in the Licensing Act for the registration of clubs, which came into force on January 1, 1903. It is true that it only applies to clubs selling liquor, but as betting men are almost invariably drinkers it isprobably comprehensive in this sense. Its inefficiency was illustrated last May by a decision of Mr. Justice Bucknill, by no means a lover of betting men, who presumably considers himself bound by former decisions. The judge must have known the extreme difficulty of the police getting evidence at all, and that it probably could not be got except by the raid, which he approved, and that a second raid after such a warning would almost inevitably be abortive. Yet, although systematic betting was proved, he ruled that it was not illegal, although it might have been so if it had been shown to go on day after day. The false protection extended to the race-course rings by the Powell-Kempton Park case would be incomplete if it were not to cover the betting clubs, and no branch of the gaming laws is more defective than with regard to these latter.

Last year the Grand Jury at Liverpool made a presentment in which they called attention “to the large sums of money extracted from the public by the so-called social clubs, which have formed the subject of several of the prosecutions which have come before us, and we feel that much harm must be done to working men and clerks belonging to the city by the assistance of these clubs.” Unfortunately, while the Act in question gives facilities for proceedings against such institutions, the police are often bribed. The writer knows of more than one instance of notice of a coming raid having been secretly given by police officers. In one case in London the proprietor openly boasts his defiance of any attempt to set the law in motion against him.Matters are no better in the provinces, and are not likely to be anywhere until the police have been thoroughly overhauled.

(g) Petty Gambling.—A few only of the multifarious forms of petty gambling can be mentioned here, principally with reference to the temptations spread before the rising generation. Amongst them are the automatic machines referred to above, which an ever-vigilant and not too scrupulous commercial instinct has been busy in turning to account for the purpose. Playing-cards figure also under this heading as a very widespread source of demoralisation among the young, especially in poor districts. Enormous quantities are sold in this country, as statistics show, and now that they are made small and cheap they are to be found everywhere. Amongst the young—where there is no bribery or but little—the police are more active and unrestrained. Gaming with cards and in other forms in a public place is prohibited, and prosecutions in connection with them are frequently reported in the newspapers. It is consequently often followed by juveniles in the poorer class refreshment-houses, and the proprietors are liable if in any way conniving at it, as in the case of a man at Hammersmith, where fifteen boys were found playing nap, and it was shown that he charged each boy a penny by the half-hour for the table. This sort of thing is going on all over the kingdom, and between the example set by their elders and the difficulty of passing more drastic laws while leaving gambling almost unfettered for rich people, the coming race inGreat Britain promises to be worse rather than better, notwithstanding all the efforts of reformers. Sir W. H. Stephenson said at Newcastle some time ago, in sentencing a group of lads for gambling, that he did not know what would become of the rising generation. Very numerous instances could be quoted of remarks showing the astonishment and despondency felt by magistrates generally. At many of the Courts hardly a week passes but what a batch of these young offenders has to be dealt with. Organised Sunday gambling is very common in numbers of districts, regular scouts and a system of signalling being maintained to outwit the police.

It may be said that there is positively no effective legislation in existence, if an exception be made of the Bank Act 1867, 30 Vict. c. 29, which provides for contracts identifying the shares of banks bought and sold. However thoroughly we may be convinced that much of the business in the above marts is to a great extent a matter of gaming, it is impossible to ignore the fact that there is a large amount of legitimate business transacted in them, and that the commercial world could hardly exist without them. There is, moreover, the great difficulty of drawing a line between the commerce and the gambling. Of course the havoc and ruin arising are known to all. The Stock Exchange is probably responsible for as much loss and misery as even the Turf, and the suffering caused in Lancashire by the recent cottongambling is but one instance, and that as it were a by-product, of the extravagant transactions of the produce exchanges. Pages might be filled with instances, such as the sale on a single occasion of two millions of a well-known railway’s stock, only £500 of it being a genuine investment. Where a commercial element is inherent, and of shifting and unascertainable proportions, difficulty has hitherto been found in framing laws against gambling which would not hamper legitimate enterprise; and consequently, in our country, by leaving things alone, the gambler has been actually encouraged by allowing him to go scot free of the moderatepro ratadues exacted from the investor. In this particular the present laws are most unhappily defective, and when we come to deal with remedies on a later page suggestions will be made upon the subject.

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