GAMBLING.

Clutha Leader, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2041, 24 August 1906, Page 5

GAMBLING.

REMARKS BY THE REV, F. W BOYS ON SUNDAY.

The sermon, preached on the "Curse of Gambling"' drew a very large audience in the Oddfellows' llall. The lie v. F. \Y. Boys began his discourse by asking the question : Is a gambler an honest man ? And is money got by gambling got in an honest way '! \ arious ills which atilict Society need to be faced by each succeeding generation. Every kinci of life has its parasite, its vermin which thrive and swarm as the life becomes unhealthy. So people who live under the vices of a nation, the parasites, wax strong as a nation decays, , anil the more the nation sickens the more they thrive. These men and women who pander to our fleshly weakness live upon our lapses from virtue. Not that they care for the vice itself, but they care for the money to be obtained from another's love of vice. They make a trade of our sins. There are two ways by which money not inherited can be acquired. to steal it, or i'2), to give an equivilent. Now the man who takes from his neighbour gives no equivalent, and this is clearly expressed , in our law, Vhich recognises no such thing as a gambling debt, lt is. not ] recoverable. To live by gambling . means the dishonest man is living upon 1 the foolish. The horrible side ot gam- ] bling is only able to exist because of ■ the shelter it obtains from the so-call- ' ed harmless kind. lt may appear a harmless thing to many to join in a ; sweep or play for a small stake, and yet if vve could persuade good and true people to stop that which seems to I them the harmless side, we should at once be able to crush that which is 1 growing into the greatest vice of our > colonial life. Any mail who gambles : for only a small stake is hindered from speaking against that which he feels . is a menace to the rising generation of New Zealand. Every honest man : tliould join in the attempt to suppress gambling. Gambling is a form of pleasure so fascinating that only the grace of God can enable those to relinquish it who fall beneath its baneful inliucnce. The small beginning seems harmless enough, but look at the end. I lie youth who has the ball of liie at his feet and seems to give promise of kicking a goal ; falls into gambling company and we watch the mind diverted from life's important work ; the callousness and hardening of liis development in vice, until he becomes the dissipated young man who always looks stale. Alas, in many eases lie ■becomes the reckless gambler, who plunges, borrows, takes ; and a broken hearted mother finds her boy has become a jail bird. At one time it could be said that only the idle, rich, and reckless poor gambled : to-day all classes are affected ; and we feel that something more that money is being wasted by this form of amusement—men are wasting their lives, the country suffers. Many of you are aware how this evil has entrenches itself _ in Victoria so as to become as strong as the civil law. The police seemed powerless to act, and it was openly stated that many detectives were in the swim. Those who tried to do their duty were assaulted and at least one man left for dead, while Sergeant o'Donneli's house was dynamited. The. leading gambler "Wren'' is enormously rich and claims many M.11.R.s as his personal friends. The result was that with the carelessness of the Government, the laxity of the police, and the general fear of citizens to speak out, the evil grew until only some tremendous revulsion of public feeling could stop the evil. The shocking tragedy of McLeod's murder at Remington was undoubtedly the psychological moment to speak. One brave man, the Rev. H. Worrall. dared, to speak, and laid the man's death at the door of the authorities who failed in their duty. Now Mr Worrall is not an unknown or untried man. He gave his life to the heathen some '2'2 years ago, and has done noble work. His church, the Methodist Church, Golden Square, Bendigo, is one of the largest of the Methocist churches. This brave man, who knew, as every Minister knows, that to strike home means loss of support on the part of some, dared to say what V believed. He was called to the Bar of the Victorian House and then was enacted a scene which was a disgrace to that colony. His judges were those whom he had accused, and Premier Bent, with Mr Uanson, vied with each other in insulting and deriding him. The Preacher held in his hand the Melbourne Argus, which in another part oi the paper showed Ganson, the M.H.R., as the paid advocate of the betting ring. Ihe preacher said he felt ashamed of the editor of the Otago Daily Times, who must have had this report before him and yet he called Mr Worrall a mere notoriety hunter ; what reform had that corageous editor helped in for the last 15 years? He said \es —No, and sat tight regarding every moral reform brought before the people. In his easy chair he sneers at this man of courage. I can well think, said Mr Boye, that had he reported another scene where the accused were also the judges—also derided —he would have written of a young man from Nazareth a notoriety hunter, who suffered death at the hands of the law for his folly ! After stating that such a scene as that in Victoria shows the need of the character of men being placed before party in returning Parliamentary candidates, the preacher gave several illustrations of lives ruined by gambling which had come under his personal notice. The growth of the betting fraternity was pointed out, and a case cited where an attempt had been made by very high authorities to interf*" -1 ?

with the courts of justice in order to shelter a wealthy lirm of bookmakers. The sermon closed with an appeal to the young men to look at the end from the beginning and to resist this snare which destroyed so many whose lieves had opened with great promise.