GAMBLING EVIL.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 168, 18 July 1910, Page 6

GAMBLING EVIL.

Voice of the churches. &acecourse betting conDEMNEB. E'ETTTIOK' PSEELY SIGNEB. At all the Protestant city and subarban churches yesterday, sermons were delivered by the officiating ministers condemnatory of gambling, and advocating measures to stop the spread of what was becoming a national evil. Copies of a petition for the abolition of licenses *o 'bookmakers were presented at the church doors for signature by all supporting the movement, and the petitions tfere largely signed wherever presented. Sfi a number of the churches resolutions urging the Government to take steps to reduce the facilities for public gambling were carried. j

"CHANCE LUCK AND CUNNING.'' The Rer, Canon MaeMurray took for his text a± St. Mary's Cathedral, Parnell. last evening, the passage from Matt, xvi., 26: "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and forfeit his whole life?" The first principle upon which the confirmed gambler based his fabric of life was the desire for the rule of blind chance, luck, and cunning, with the exclusion of God and law. The gambler's hope and ambition was to gain, not by enriching the whole community by toil, but without giving forth anything, to gain by the loss of others. The gambler was essentially a man in whom all the finer instincts and aspirations of life had become atrophied, and to him all men with whom he came in contact were regarded as so many prospective victims. No room was there for such a man in the sphere where God*s overruling providence ordered all things. It was on social grounds that the bookmaker and totalisator should be abolished more than on purely religious- grounds, and it was as a citizen that he protested against a law which tra-ve sanction to the depredations of social parasites, who fattened on the iweaknesses and faults of humanity." WOMAN GAMBLERS A HORROR.

Preaching at St. David's Church, Rev. j Gray Dixon referred appreciably to the alliance between commerce and the Church in the great crusade for the re-1 pression of gambling. Those who desired' to see the evils attendant on gambling ■lessened were spoken of as hypocrites, humbugs, and given to cant; and even good churchmen said they were ultra-purita-nical. G£;nxbling was a manifestation of the mercenary spirit of the age, and should be tolerated only as the murderer or the thief was tolerated, whether iound in commerce, in the respectable broker's office, or in the racecourse paddock. It was theft with the prison dress off, and the gambler was a thief. The preacher declared that there were many women who nere gamblers, and he warned them that if they continued they would be responsible for the downfall of many voting men. "The woman gambler is to mc a horror. I say a horror," the rev. speaker emphasised, "yet there are thousands of them in Auckland who are as respectable-looking matrons a-s one would and in a day's journey." Lord Kenyon recommended the pillory for gamblers, and Mr. Dixon presented the picture ol a lair lady, say, from Remuera, pilloried and pelted with rotten eggs by the larrikins as they passed by. Oi the two evils ot drunkenness and gambling the latter was toe worse, and was blighting che Australasian communities to a greater extent than the curse of liquor. The individual and the State should adopt the attitude of "no quarter" so far as gambling was concerned.

TOTALISATOR OR THE BOOKMAKER.

At St. Stephen's Presbyterian Church, Ponsonby, the Rev. I. Jolly said the aim of the gambler was to get money without working for it, and this motive, he submitted, 'did not differ from that of the thief. Judging the actions by the motive that he could see no moral .difference between the betting man and the thief. The gambler said that he risked his money at the same time, but this did not alter the moral character of the action. It had been well pointed out, he said, that gambling held the same relation to stealing, as duelling did to murder. The dueller tried to take another's life, and risked his own at the same time. Continuing, Mr. Jolly said their object at the present time was to abolish the bookmaker, but it was open to doubt whether the bookmaker or the totciisator was the greater »viL The air of respectability given to the totalisator led many people, especially women of respectable families, to bet through it, who would not go near the bookmaker.

CHURCH RAFFLES. In denouncing gambling generally as a breach of the Kighth Commandment, the llev. A. Millar. M.A., preaching at the Edendale Presbyterian Church, urged that the Church should show a good example by keeping her skirts clean and avoid raffles, lotteries and other elements of chance in connection with church functions. The following resolution was carried:—"That this congregation, viewing with alarm the prevalence of the oambling evil in the community, would call upon the Government; to introduce and pass into law such measures as may serve to check this growing evil. .Specially this congregation would ask: (a) That bookmakers be suppressed; (b) that the totalisator be abolished; and (c) that it be made a punishable offence for older persons to bet with young people under" 21 years of age." THE CURSE OF THE DOMINION.

Speaking at BeTesford Street Congregational Church last evening to a large gathering, the Rev. Henry Steele Craik referred" to the enormous misery, sin, and distress resulting from gambling, the harvest of suicides, absconders, convicts and lunatics, and to the court records of crime committed as the result of gambling. There were, he added, hundreds of other cases of theft as the result of gambling losses which never reached the Police Court. Sport was losing its true meaning on account of the gambling element. Commenting on the difference between the bookmaker and the totalisator, Mr. Craik pointed out that the machine could not fail to pay, and had also the legal stamp of the Government, but he understood the machine hrnad made gambling more respectable. There was no hiding the fact that many a sovereign went on the machine had made gambling more respectGovernment was teaching through the machine a lower standard of respectability. Air. Craik also touched upon the evil of amateur bookies in factories, and the growth of the gambling epirit

amongst women. He quoted from the | "Star" leader that "it should be Che j obvious duty of the State to restrict! the pernicious activity of the bookmaker as far as possible." Finally Mr. Craik commended the Premier for the I proposals submitted to deal with the j evil, and added that it would bo well for employers to pay better wages to men who were hi position* of trust, where they handled large sums of money. "On the ground of Christ's ideal, passion and suffering," said Mr. Craik in conclusion, "gambling must be put down." HAPPINESS v. MISERY. The Rev. W. Day referred to the ga-mb-I ling evil in the course of his sermon last evening in Mount Eden Congregational , Church. He quoted from Herbert Speni cer's celebrated delivery upon the subject, emphasising the point that gambling meant one man's happiness at the expense of another's misery. ALL-PERVADING VICE. Speaking briefly but incisively on the subject at the Pitt-street Methodist Church yesterday morning, the Rev. W. Ready declared that no vice was so widespread in this country as gambling, and no class seemed to be free from the abomination. Because he did not give an equivalent for his winnings, the bookmaker was a human parasite and should be outlawed. Mr. Law submitted the following resolution, which was unanimously approved by the congregation: "That this meeting assembled for public worship in the Pitt-street Methodist Church, believing that all forms of gambling are demoralising, respectfully requests the Government to repeal the law licensing bookmakers, that the totalisator be by law prohibited and the number of annual race meetings be greatly reduced." A similar resolution submitted by the Rev. Mr. Ready to the Methodist Church congregation at Kingsland last night, was carried unanimously. A WIDESPREAD EVIL. The Rev. C. A. B. Watson, preaching at the evening service in St. Paul's Church from the text, "Ye are the light of the world," referred in his address to the widespread and growing evil of gambling in all forms —from speculation on the stock exchange downwards. What was required to remedy it was the growth of a strong public opinion opposed to it, which must take its origin in the churches. The confirmed gambler should be shunned like the confirmed drunkard, and the people of the Church should set an example by refusing to countenance raffles and guessing competitions, or anything resembling gambling in any form. A TERRIBLE INCREASE. ! Preaching at the Ponsonby Baptist Church, the Rev. A. North said Judge Chapman was to be thanked for his forceful outspokenness in regard to the evils of gambling. It was the duty of everyone who had the interests of morality at heart to bring about a gTeater state of purity. Mr. North deplored the terrible increase that had taken place in gambling in the Dominion, and said it was deplorable that such an evil should be legalised by the State. There was, he said, no vice more contrary to the interests of humanity and to the building up of character. It weakened the moral fibre, and sapped all that made for good citizenship. After the service petitions urging the Government not to legalise the bookmaker were signed by a large number of worshippers. HOLY TRINITY, OTAHUHU. The Rev. W. E. Gillam, vicar of St. Matthew's, conducted divine service at Holy Trinity Church last evening. There was an unusually large congregation. Mr. Gillam preached a special sermon on gambling. He deplored the increase of the evil, which he said was the besetting sin of the English-speaking peopie The gambler was even worse than the drunkard. He considered the bookmaker was a danger to society, and should be abolished, and appealed to his hearers to discountenance the gambling vice by every means in their power. Petitions, to be presented to both Houses of Parliament, praying for the abolition of the bookmaker, were largely signed by the congregation at the close oi the service. A MOST INSIDIOUS VICE. The Rev. G. Bond, preaching at St. John's yesterday, dealt with the subject of "Gambling." He said this was one of the most insidious forms of vice; it had not a single redeeming feature, it sapped the foundations of commercial morality, and was a menace to the whole community. The bookmaker represented the worst aspects of this evil. He was a moral plague and a social parasite fattening upon the ruin and degradation of his unfortunate victims. It was gratifying that the Judicial Bench and Chambers of Commerce, the Press. and the Pulpit were with one voice proclaiming him an outlaw; he must go, and that soon. At the close of the address the following resolution was unanimously agreed to, namely:—"That this meeting assembled for public worship in St. John's Methodist. Church, believing that all forms of gambling are demoralising to the community, respectfully requests the Government to repeal the law licensing bookmakers; that the totalisator he by law prohibited and that the number of annual race-meetings be greatly reduced."

DEMORALISATION OF THE COMMUNITY. At the Eden. Terrace Primitive Methodist Church yesterday morning, the Rev. T. H. Lyon, after preaching upon the ethics, extent, and effects of gambling, asked the congregation to rise as a sign of approval of the following resolution: —"This congregation emphaticallj'' protests against the continued legalisation of the totalisator and the licensing of bookmakers, believing that the influence of both tends to the demoralisation of the community." The response was a unanimous one.