GAMBLING.

Observer, Volume 9, Issue 529, 9 February 1889, Page 3

GAMBLING.

' Nap ' writes under the above heading : — 'Dear Ouseuvkk; With your condemnation of the Victoria-street gambling htll I must cordially agree ; in showing up the goings on at this place I consider you have done a public service, but fair play's a jewel. Why confine your remarks to tne Victoria-street place ? The so-called " swell " clubs are just as bud, and a good deal worse, if v comes to that. In these places gambling is openly pursued, and for nigher slakes, I will venture to say, than are ever planked down in Victoria-street. Wiiy should our " aristocrats"- save the mark! — be permitted io gamble without let or hindrance while the humble clerk, artisan and shopman are dubbed "immoral "and "abandoned" if they venture to indulge in a game or Nap or Euchre? fcjurely what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander ? If gambling is bad for Jones the shopman and Smith the bookkeeper, it is equally bad for Hobinson the big bug, and Brown, the well-to-do professional man ? Your well-known love of fair-play, will I am sure, compel you to concede so much V -*• # * Several other correspondents have written tome to the same effect. I should be sorry indeed if any one of my readers should run away with the idea that I have any desire to shield the ' big bugs ' and confine my l slating ' to Messrs Dick, Tom and Harry, frequenters of the Victoriastreet den and the other gambling dens to be found behind tobacconists' shops, etc., in both city and suburbs. But ' Nap ' will be so good as to bear this in mind : the members of what he calas ' the swell clubs ' are for the most part men of means who can afford to risk their money, whereas shopmen and clerks are seldom so well remunerated that they can lose without feeling it. A man possessing a lucrative appointment or a comfortable private income can drop a • fiver ' with less inconvenience than a poor working man can ' part ' half-a-sovereign. * * Gambling of all kinds and indulged in anywhere, is bad, of course, but ii; is doubly bad when it is indulged in by those who can ill. spare the loss of even a trifle, and whose wives, families and tradespeople have to suffer when money goes. * » o I am quite prepared to admit that the Victoriastreet place is not the only one of the kind inAuckJaud. Many tobacconists eke out their expenses by permitting gambling on their premises. And the police are haraly su energetic as they might be io suppressing an intolerable evil.