RACING IN WAR TIME

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 263, 26 July 1918, Page 6

RACING IN WAR TIME

Sir,—ln your issue to-day you publish a leader appealing to the public for support for Navy Day and our brave heroes of the deep. You express the hope there ivill be no shirkers. You emphasise.the fact that "to our Navy we owe all we possess," further expressing a desire "that what is given will be given not of necessity or grudgingly, but cheerfully."' But, Sir,' not one word of reproach appears in your articto against 11k> .itW.liOO spent last week in gambling. Half that sum would be a record day for "Jack."'' Will the people give it? It remains to bo soon, and will be a true tost of their patriotism and love of Empire. Past experience has again and again proved that, stronger than the lova of country, of Empire, of Army, Navy, or any of the heroic boys and men lighting for its existence, is the lovo of gambling; oi\ as Sir George Clifford states, "essential racing, and a bounden duty" to continue it. It is the "bounden duty" of tho public to respond handsomely to this appeal and "to put their money 011 it." Tho result will prove whether "the breed of these heroes is stronger that "the breed" of horses and jockeys. Australia has evidenced that the jockeys and their "spider-leg mounts" take pride of place in "never, never," for gambling in patriotic causes is prohibited, bait the turf remains untouched. Will the New- Zealand racing clubs show a different front? Echo answers?—l am, etc., AUSTEN GLENDOWER. July 22.