TOTALISATOR COMMISSION

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXI, Issue LXII, 14 May 1912, Page 5

TOTALISATOR COMMISSION

A MINISTER'S EVIDENCE

3Y CABLE—PEESS ASSOCIATION—COPYEIGHT. SYDNEY, May 13.

Before the, Totalisator Commission the Rev. Wools Kutiedge, a Methodist minister, stated that he did not think that tiie totaiisator improved the breed of horses. Even if it aid, it would not breed a better class of men. It would make the State a participator in the vice of gambling, and there was also a danger of an increase in gambling, because it would give an air of respectability to the vice which it did not possess to-day. He knew of a Sunday school where Tattersall's sweeps were subscribed for.

John Whitworth and Thomas Cotter, two New Zealanders, favored the bookmakers, the latter because under the totalisator the punter bets in the dark. The totalisator, he said, also bred betting in shops at totalisator odds.