DRINK AND GAMBLING.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIII, Issue 1586, 11 June 1920, Page 6

DRINK AND GAMBLING.

(Per Press Association ) WELLINGTON, Last Night. In sentencing two prisoners to-day, Sir Robert Stout, Chief Justice, remarked on the two causes of crime, drink and gambling. Colin McKenzie, with a dozen other aliases, and a record of crime covering all but his period of war service, was sentenced on a number of charges of theft, false Pretences, forgery and uttering, and orse stealing, to one month's hard labour on each charge, the terms to be cumulative ,and he was also declared an habitual criminal. The prisoner's drinking habits were the cause of the crime. James George Tracey, a Customs clerk, had pleaded guilty at Napier, to a long series of thefts, totalling £4522 17/1. Counsel stated the downfall of accused was entirely due to gambling. He handled £120,000 a year, receiving a salary of £230. In sentencing Tracey to seven years' reformative treatment, the Judge said it was an enormous sum to go in gambling. Of course our people, he added, do not seem to think gambling wrong, and there is encouragement to it in the shape of revenue from the totalisator. The receipts at Auckland amounted to £93,000, with the same process elsewhere. Nobody seems to take any interest in trying to stop gambling. The Government Departments ought to know who are gambling amongst its servants. Such things are not permitted in England or America. The gamblers go,