TAKE A TICKET!

Observer, Volume XXXV, Issue 46, 24 July 1915, Page 2

TAKE A TICKET!

Not Illegal Now!

A MAN walked down Queen Street with a £10 note sticking out of his pocket. A gentleman-passing by saw. the note and abstracted ;it in an adept manner, folding it carefully and- placing it in has pocket book. A constable witnessed the apparently illegal act ■and arrested tiße gentleman. I saw you take the £10 note," said the constable, "and arrest you.

"But," protested the gentleman, "I took it for patriotic purposes." "I beg your pardon, sir!" exclaimed the constable. "Good ' morning, sir!" The transaction being thus legalised by the State through its officer the man went away and bought £10 worth of groceries for himself with the money. Absurd yarn,-isn't it? In New Zealand! the people are very good. The sins one doesn't commit oneself are very wicked sins. Gambling is so wicked that it has been stopped! Tattereall's sweeps are illegal, and therefore the holy denizens" of these isles don't send! very many tons of postal notes to Tasmania every year. Bookmakers have been wiped out, and other laughable lies might be told.

But, beet of all, lotteries are illegal. You mustn't play a game of chance. It's immoral. The clergy don't like it. They won't have it— except at church bazaars. Lotteries are illegal, even ii the prize is the full value of the subscriptions. Peo pie must be moral, andi the law sees to it. The State hasn't tried drawing teeth or curing paralysis by act: of Parliament, but you never know what the future has in store. About, these lotteries. Terrible row about a motor car that was to be raffled once. Fearful tumult reigned when a wicked mam (now deceased) dared tcK suggest a gamble digging for "buried- treasure" at the exhibition.. (Gambling is wicked—always was wickedi, always will be wicked, wicked in August, 1914, and wicked in July, 1915. It's immoral, that's what it is! (Sobs.) But what about a 100,000 to one chance in the sacred name of patriotism? For- patriotic purposes houses and land are being gambled almost every day. Are the morals of the community being utterly ruined ? No, sir!. Gambling for patriotic purposes is noit wicked. This paper does not niind if ten million acres of laiid in New Zealand is raffled at £1 a ticket. The gambling sipirit in human nature is ■.ineradicable, and parsons may bleat all they want about it without affecting the result in any way.

A national lottery (the sort of lottery that ie so very sinful in Italy and' Germany and America and Holland and Switzerland) is to take place for £4000 of land shares. A total of 100,000 tickets are to be soldi, and the money raised is to be £25,000. What are the people going to gamble that money for, dear friends? For patriotic purposes? You make us smile I For a remote chance of a personal' win? Surely not, oh surely not, very dear and most moral brethren! It's a queer thing to the mild analyst of humanity to note that what ie a crime in time of peace is a virtue in time of war, that you might destroy your immortal soul by taking a Waikato lar.dl raffle ticket, in 1914 and go to heaven, on a wave of patriotic fervour in 1915 for doing the same thing, applauded l by .your fellowmen and complimented by : ■ the ehurcih.. This, war is going to knock hole® in much . wowserism' in New Zealamdi, and even the large policesergeant may in time to come neglect to arrest the 70 yeans old woman who has sold, a pennyworth of lollies oJi the Sabbath. It's no<t only true to say we are a nation of gamblers, but that every virile nation ie a nation of gamblers. The most desperate game of chance is being pTiayedi now, with .Empires. for (xranters.

Why not make a law declaring war illegal, just as we have made a law declaring raffles and such thing* illegal. We could break it with impunity for "patriotic purposes."' One is glad to see these raffles going: forwaird, because it is proved that the alleged wave of sanctimony isfraudulent, that a whole nation ie. glad of any excuse to legalise a natural tendency which is suppressed! by the Longfaces in times of peace. There are fewer holy dyspeptics turning their yellow eyeballs upwards in> prayerful detestation of their fellow men now than for-some; years,. and it is a healthy sign. Suppression does not eradicate sin, andl

suppression of gambling only epurs it to greater volume. When the dove of peace settles on the hilltops once ntare, tihe dyspeptics . who have taken tickets in raffles for patriotic purposes will be able to roll their eyes and fulminate some more, but the wowser has lost his kick, and! for many years to come human beings will be less irritated by kill-joys and self-advertisers.