WICKED PAKAPOO.

Free Lance, Volume XIV, Issue 695, 25 October 1913, Page 8

WICKED PAKAPOO.

The Terrible Chinese and Their

Patrons.

A WILIER raid has been made on the pakairoo shops, and the police admitted that the four Chinese arrested were men of good general character who were merely humble agents of the real conductors of the game. The men responsible are too shrewd to fall into the hands of the police.

That is interesting. . If the police is not getting at the men really responsible, the police are failing to strike at the real evil. As to how bad the real evil is, opinions differ. All gambling, being bad, pakapoo is bad. If any gambling is to_ be tolerated, why not pakapoo —which is unquestionably a vejry fair gamble . indeed? _ The opinion gains ground that certain forms of gambling should be regulated rather than suppressed. Men will gamble, and if they cannot gamble legally, they will gamble ille-

gaily. If bridge- were an 'illegal game, the law would be broken daily in every club in the Dominion—as the spirit of the law is already broken daily. For the essential offence is the same, whether a man plays pakapoo or plays ha'penny nap. That is the fact our perfervid antigamblers are apt to overlook. But how ninny of them would want to ra!d a fashionable "bridge"rarty in Wellington or interfere with a card party in a toney club? , -