A LEETLE INCONSISTENT.

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 522, 22 December 1888, Page 3

A LEETLE INCONSISTENT.

Who was the first parson to use the fancy fair as a means of raising the wind I don't know, but it was a lucky hit. Fancy fairs and bazaars must have realised millions for the church, and afforded unlimited work for fair fingers in the manufacture of penwipers, spill holders, satin butterflies, and other artioles equally valuable. 'The lucky bag' was another splendid idea, financially speaking, and is of material assistance .at fancy bazaars in helping to fill the coffers of the church. * * # With what appears to me something slightly resembling inconsistency, many of the reverend gentlemen who are unsparing in their denunciation of gambling— that • moral pitfall ' of which we hear so much— readily countenance 'the lucky bag,' for a ' dip ' into which a sixpence or a shilling is charged, and which may result in your becoming the proud possessor of a halfpenny doll or a guinea workbox, ; ' it's all the fortune of war,' as the gentlemen who manipulates the revolving wheels on the racecourses say. * # * Now the very men who would regard with horror the taking a ticket on one of these machines and standing in to win a pound note, can see no harm in the lucky bag or the raffle. Perhaps they think that when money is raised for the church the end attained justifies the means employed, but. this is a very questionable kind of argument. Our reverend friends should be consistent— either all gambling is bad or it is not. If it is bad, then the totalisator, dice, cards, &c, ought all to come in for condemnation alike — not forgetting the lucky bag. What is more likely to foster and encourage a taste for gambling in boys than this same bag ? Is not the boy who • dives ' for lollies and toys, cricket j bats and silver watches likely, shen he emerges from short jackets and attains the dignity of a ' tail,' to ' dive ' for five-pound notes in the totalisator ? * * * This question occurred to me the other night as I wended my way Ponsonbywards. Outside a certain schoolroom coanected with a place of worship a group of boys were standing talking. Inside the schoolroom a sort of fancy fair was going on, and the youths in question had been, it was evident from their conversation, trying their fortune with the lucky bag. One boy declared it was ' alia swindle,' and another ruefully exhibited a farthing doll as his ' prize,' while he announced that he was ' going to have another sixpennorth if it broke him.' —^_