WONDROUS WAIUTA.

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 June 1911, Page 3

WONDROUS WAIUTA.

[TO the editor.] Sir, —There has been quite a number of letters in your paper of late about the gambling that goes on amongst the pool* unfortunate devil-may-care miners as one letter terms them. What makes these men so reckless ? one would ask. Well one who understands the life of a miner can answer without hesitation. In the first place he knows his life is short as com stantly inhaling ■ dust fumes, etc., plays havoc with his lungs. Then there is the risk of being killed at any moment. The miner has no fear of jail, for this reason. He knows that if he is sentenced to twelve months, at the end of that period he will be in better health than his brother miner who works in the mine. Again, he knows he will live longer as the conditions in jail are better than those in a mine. In jail there is no whistle to call you to work out of your warm bed at midnight; in jail one gets his natural sleep and the work is healthy. Why should he fear jail when jail is his friend? Now I would like to know how it is that the Government does not put down the horse-racing industry which . robs the miner. When the miners gamble amongst themselves everything is honest and if one miner looses his brother miner wins. But the racing industry which is run by the leading men of the Coast is dirty robbery as it requires no pluck or skill. This is how races are run. The owners decide on a certain horse to win. They put a certain number of tickets on the unconscious robbing machine and divide the first, second, and third between them and the amount the horse pays on the machine. Would one think for a moment that the owners of horses run them for sport and buy chaff for them out of their own pocket. No the miners buy the chaff and are robbed shabbily. Why the jack tosser, the card sharper, and the "nut” player arc men who should be honoured in the land as they are men of skill, nerve, brains and are game to the finger nails. They rob their viclim while he is looking at them. Everything is done cleverly, gamely and, as the old saying goes, fortune favors the brave. I think the police should leave these men alone and chase some of the Coast’s leading citizens who are robbing the miner so shabbily. Even the poor farmer is robbed at ihe races and who suffers —the poor little cockatoo boys and girls. They have to go without boots and clothes when their father puts his cows on the machine. As one farmer s wife said in a railway carriage: “My husband has just done two cows at the races. We -will not be able to supply you with butter.” In a glance one could see the woman was cut up and I thought, as many others did in the carriage, why is the horse racing industry allowed. Yours, etc.,

GEO. ATKINSON Waiuta, June 2nd. 1911.