ART UNION ALLOCATIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 26, 31 January 1934, Page 6

ART UNION ALLOCATIONS.

Many people of tender conscience were persuaded to take tickets in art unions by the statement that tlie profits would l>e used to relieve distress. They now find that £1000 is to jro to the relief of distress, as against £3000 to a prosperous jockey club; and while, a tennis and croquet club gets £1000, a hostel I for returned soldiers and sailors has to be content with half that sum. The art union was called a "Lucky Surprise," and it certainly was a lucky surprise for the jockey club in question, while being a surprise, though not a lucky one, for those innocent souls who had believed that in taking a ticket they were genuinely .helping to mitigate distress. Their innate distrust of anything that savoured of gambling was tempered by the reflection that it was in a good cause. Xow they find that the good cause is a club devoted to horse racing, a sport not unconnected with the very gambling they distrusted. The time hae come to do away with the pretence of the*e "sweeps" being in any way "art" unions. They are gambles pure and simple, with the dice loaded against the investor. , SURPRISED.