A PHILIPPIC AGAINST GAMBLING.

Otago Witness, Issue 1993, 5 May 1892, Page 19

A PHILIPPIC AGAINST GAMBLING.

(From Our Own Cobhbspondbnt.) Auckland, May 2. Last evening the Rev. J Bf rry preached a sermon on " Betting and Gambling in Auckland : The Disease and its Remedy." There was a large congregation. He based his address on Ezekiel xxx, 7-8. He said in the courso of his sermon that " there were in Auckland more bookmakers and professional gamblers than there were clergymen and schoolmasters. Gambling brought ruin on the moral nature. On a racecourse near Auckland not long ago a jockey was carried off seriously hurt. A woman bystander, after a passing look of pity, said, ' Never mind ; ifc is all the butter, for my horse got in,' — mentioning the horse on which she had bet. Our professional men, doctors, lawyers, and ministers of religion ought to represent the very crown and flower of our civilisation. The whole community bows its head in shame when our professional men prove false in their trust ; but what of the vice which has wrought this ? Can you ask me for a command, ' Thou shalt not gamble ? ' I reply that God Almighty has written it with forked lightning across the face of our city. In considering the remedy we must begin at the top. There are those in the community who are the recognised leaders in society because pi their wealth or education or other reasons. They claim and receive certain social privileges. They set the fashions. What they do is supposed to be the correct thing. Ourchildren regard them as examples : visitors who come from afar, if of any note, are introduced to these if to no one else. They are the eggs on the top of the basket: if they are nob good eggs, visitors naturally form very unfavourable opinioas about the rest of us. Some very plain words need to be said to our society leaders. The privileges they claim and receive entail special responsibilities which, if they ignore, involves the rest of us in suffering and disgrace, and brings double damnation upon tht-ir^ own heads. I speak especially of the select circles who constitute our clubs. At a southern club it was said that a visitor was introduced and fleeced of a considerable sum of money through the parties who introduced him. In Wellington it was said L3OO a day went in various forms of gambling by what are called the upper classes ; and if such people set the fashion, what can we expect from those who imitate and follow? But we must look nearer home. What about our local clubs ? Just now the air of Auckland is electric with suppressed excitement on this question, and whispers are passing from lip to cur of very high gambling which is said to have been carried on within the club walls in past years. I am not disposed to bring into this pulpit the talk of the man in the street, but it is impossible altogether to ignore what, I may &(H, I have on the highest authority. It has mantled my cheek with shame that such things could even be said of gambling within select social circles, whether they be true or not. After careful consideration I have decided not to make them public at present ; but Ido say that the time has come when our clubs should either vindicate themselves or purge themselves from even the suspicion of such practices,—

(Applause.) That these things have been done, if at all, in profound secrecy, and unknown to the majority of members, I can quite believe. That there are many gentlemen of unblemished honour in connection with clubs we all know. Thevse gentlemen have the credit of our city, the morals of tho rising generation, as well as their own reputations, at stake. After all that has happened and in the present state of public feeling, surely they may bo trusted to purge out the evil leaven once for all. — -/Applause.) " It was a common siyht at Ellerslie bo see young boys and girls betting with bookmakers. The preacher held in his hand a number of .tickets issued by licensed bookmakers and layers of totalisator odds to inmates of the Costley Institute. Thero were seven of them, and they represented an aggregate amount of L 2 Is. They had been found upon the clothes of tho boysandhad been passed to him to make of them any use he saw fit. He also mentioned a case in which three boys, members of one family, the eldest of whom was under 20, had literally won LIOO by betbing on athletic sports. Two of these boys belonged to a Sunday .school. v The law protected children under 12 from the pawnbroker and the publican but not from the bookmakers, hence tho disgraceful hco.ues referred to. He thought that the B.md of Education should request school teachers to instruct tho children upon the evils of guubling, that the totalisator should be suppress I uid legislation passed prohibiting the pub'.i.-.itiju of betting nssws, quotations, and " lips."'