THE BOOKMAKER AND THE LAW

Southland Times, Issue 14635, 27 January 1911, Page 5

THE BOOKMAKER AND THE LAW

(Special to the Times.) WELLINGTON, Jan. 2G. A writer in the Evening Post, commenting upon the fact that th§ recent Wellington meeting marks the end of the bookmakers’ legal career in this city, says : “The writer Is convinced that the only way to put down betting at tote odds (now a criminal offence) is to enact that any person suspected of being a bookmaker is liable to arrest and imprisonment unless he can prove that he earns his living by some honest form of employment, and that the onus of proving that the person so charged is not a bookmaker shall rest on the accused himself. Now what Legislature would attempt to pass such a law ? The operation of the ‘books’ during tljo next three months —their legal existence ends on 31st January—will be watched with keen interest. It is tolerably certain that the army of hangers-on, the second-rate spielers and first-rale wasters, will be considerably reduced. The police will be no longer met with the answer that these gentry are bookmakers when anxious to arrest on a charge of vagrancy. The gaols will benefit to a certain extent. Meantime the genuine bookmaker is hugely amused at the attempt to extinguish him, and the determined stay-at-home punter knows quite well that he will have no ( difficulty in backing his fancy in the future, always at a limit of £7 10s and £3 155.”