“HOUSEY-HOUSEY.”

Otago Witness, Issue 3714, 19 May 1925, Page 69

“HOUSEY-HOUSEY.”

Half of Melbourne is gnashing its teetK and the other half is chuckling over the decision of a Melbourne County Court judge that “housey-housey” is a legal game. Probably every member of the Australian and New Zealand expeditionary forces came into contact with “houseyhousey” at some time of his soldiering career. It was popular on transports and railway trains, in camp and dug-out. It was the one game of chance that could be openly played before the greater number of commanding officers, who frowned upon two-up and rapny kinds of card games. In, “housey-bousey” the “banker” sells a certain number of cards, with an equal number of blank and numbered squares. Each card contains about 15 numbers. The "banker” has numbered marbles, ranging from one to 100, and when he has sola his cards, proceeds to withdraw the marble* one by one from a bag and call them out, the patrons marking the numbers on the cards when they are called by the "banker.” When a card holder has marked all the numbers of his card he call* “House” and takes a percentage of the pool represented by the sale of cards, the "banker” retaining the remainder for hla expenditure of voice-power. The game had been revived more or less unobtrusively by enterffrising side-show proprietors, who operated at charity carnivals. The Victorian legal authorities decided to test in the lower courts whether the game was legal.as the growth of “housey-housev” proprietors warranted some check, in their opinion. But they jumped from the frying pan into the fire Judge Moule held that the game was legal, as an enterprising fellow had elimhr-ited the purely gambling clement by making the choice of numbers depend, not upon a calling of a culle' •lumber, but upon the throwing of a ball into numbered boxes. This last innovation, it was held, was sufficient to introduce a necessary measure of skill. Immediately upon the decision, “liouscy-4 liousey” proprietors deserted the shl?«t shows and set themselves up in regular business in city uni suburbs. For a. return of between 0s and 10s per game, these proprietors give a box of chocolates costing about 2s wholesale as the prize. Ten or 12 games are played in the hour, and play lasts three or four hours, nightly. Consequently it is estimated that “honsey-; liousey” is returning some of its enterprise iag organisers as much as £lO per night. The declaration of the games as legal led to a whoop of Joy from the people who 'ike to hazard money and a snarl of rage from a greater number of persons such os clergymen, workmen’s wives, shopkeepers, and many other branches of Melbourne’s community The shopkeepers are particularly bitter, confectioners being especially affected by the loss of salts when lucky winners pass their shops by with the spoils of a good night’s winning! at ‘housey-housey” under their arms. So serious has the craze become that re« presentative organisations and citizens have protested to the Stale AttorneyGeneral, who is now taking steps to test the legality of the game in the higher courts, but the “housey-housey” proprietors have also entrenched themselves. They have formed an Amalgamated Games Association, which is trying to gain wider popular support for the game, and is preparing to engage the best legal talent te oppose the State’s case.