GAMBLING AND CHILDREN

Te Aroha News, Volume XLI, Issue 6441, 22 January 1924, Page 5

GAMBLING AND CHILDREN

(To the Editor.) Sir, —Please allow me to express a mother’s views on this great patter in your paper. Like “Citizen” I often wondered what the police were doing and why our children were exposed to these temptations. Like him I also wondered why the Churches and Borough Council did not condemn these great evils. It canttot be that

it was because they did not know. ■ The police must have known unless “there is none so blind as those who do not wish to see.” Now that’“Citizen” has forced this matter on the public notice perhaps the Churches and some!of our public men'will take it up.' In the interests of the rising generations, Sir, something ought to be done. As a mother of a growing family I know the danger they are exposed to. I know temptation is put into the way of children. It is a

cruel shame that this should be possible at this time of civilisation and >' in a town of the size of Te Aroha. I am surprised that the men engaged in this wicked business have so little self-respect that they do not go and work and do some good for themselves bnd others. As a mother I hope they will now feel ashamed of themselves and seek in future to earn an honest living. I sincerely thank “Citizen’' for his letter, and trust our public men will have the courage to support him and put this evil out of our town. —I am, , etc., A MOTHER.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —Your correspondent "Citizen” is again in the limelight, no doubt greatly encouraged by the efforts of his two lieutenants, “Marcus” and “A Brother.” His quotation “Men love darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil” is quite alright so far as it goes, but at the same time I would like “Citizen” to answer this question: If he (“Citizen”) practised what he preached, why did he write under cover of darkness? Had he not the courage of his convictions to come out and conduct his campaign in daylight? No, he himself preferred to work in dark-

ness, and for his benefit I would i!v quote that well-known proverb, “Men 1 who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” With reference to his statement, “A general windiness among the fraternity’,’ perhaps he has started crowing too soon, for notwithstanding his brilliant epistles in the press, he will find that men will still continue to “back their fancy” not ony in Te Aroha, but in every town from the North Cape to the Bluff. The authorities are quite aware of this fact, and were so even before “Citizen” made his great discovery in Whitaker Street. If he is so concerned with the seriousness of this growing evil as he would like us to believe him to be, then his own conscience should urge a man of his ability into joining up at the earliest possible moment, but personally I do not think he could catch the measles i if he went to India, let alone bookmakers with “the necessary evidence 'to convict them.” This is the allimportant point, the difference between victory and defeat, and a point which “Citizen” and his “second

fiddles” might well debate before asking the question: Do the authorities pass by on the other side of'the road. —I am, etc.,

DOLEFUL DITTY.