THE MEANS AND THE END.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10638, 14 April 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MEANS AND THE END.

Under this appropriate heading, the Australasian of a recent date, in a lead-

ing article, discourses as follows : "Gambling is indefensible in almost any aspect in which you choose to look at it. With rich men it is at best a folly; with poor men it is a vice, very often almost criminal in its effects. We draw the distinction not in the act itself, but in its consequences. The rich can at least afford to gamble — it is one of the excitements which wealth all over the world seeks as an antidote to ennui. They can gamble without injuring anyone but themselves, and as a general rule without risk of being unable to meet ordinary obligations which Honor and Law impose as a common duty upon men. Any excuses we may make for gambling are at best 'bad ones, but when a hue and cry is raised against it there is some need to draw a distinction between gambling itself and tho means which are generally used -for gambling. There is quite as much gambling in stocks, shares, and real property, as there is in sport, but in the one case it is excused by that good charitable word 'business,' while in the other it becomes just a vicious indulgence. What the moralist needs to think over at times is the fact that sport of almost every kind is older than any vice wliich may have fastened upon it like parasites upon a fruit tree. -*The gardener does not, as a rule, kill the tree in order to destroy the blight. He sprays it with Bordeaux mixture, and the tree flourishes all the better because of the treatment. No sport worth the name was specially designed for the purposes of gambling, but the better and the more popular the sport the more certain it is to be adopted as a means for gambling.

Any game of cards — even bridge or whist, which are intellectual games, and need no stake to make them endurable

i — may , be , played for nioney> but- to the man avlio wants the game, and not the stake, they are none the less agreeable. There is a sort of Aveak Avorldlines which says : "Oh, let us play for something; make it a small stake if you like, just to have some interest in the game."There would be less of that affection, perhaps, if there were not an even gleaner weakness on the part of those who object to playing for a stake, but have not the moral courage to stand by their convictions, lest it should be thought that they could not afford to lose money, or were too mean to accept the risk of losing it. Sport neither exists for gambling nor becauso of gambling. It oAves its existence to the desire of healthy minded people for national pleasures. The mystery is so many cannot realise this fact."