DUNEDIN ITEMS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 4544, 16 November 1882, Page 3

DUNEDIN ITEMS.

[By Tbibgbaph.]

[BPBOIAL TO THB "STAB."]

Fire Rates in Dunedin.

Thb Totalisator Case,

The Wrestling Championship.

DUNEDIN, Not. 16. At tha annual meeting of the National Insurance Company yesterday, Mr Edmund Smith, who seconded the adoption of the report, expressed his opinion that the fire rates were far too high. He said :— " The question occurs to mo whether something could not be done in the direction of reducing them. To maintain them teems to me to offer temptation to other Companies to enter the field, and that is. undesirable. One or two companies entering the field could cut down the tariff very materially, and I respectfully suggest to the Directors to consider whether they could not take some action towards the reduction of existing rates. The complaints are loud, and deep on every hand, and I think there are few laymen (who are not initiated, perhaps, in fire insurance business) but will say that the rates are excessively high." The question wbb not discussed, but the speaker's remarks were reoeived with approbation by the shareholders. Regarding the recent convictions in the totalisator cases, the legality of whioh is not questioned, the Daily Times says : "It is obvious that, when the State formally legalised totalisatorß carried on under the auspices of Jookey Clubs, it left no ver/t logioal ground of objeotion to totalisators carried on by private persons. The law as it stands must, we suppose, be enforced ; but it doea not carry with it publio sentiment, or tend in any way to the improvement of public morals. Moat people will consider that, if it is not wrong to invest in a totalisator sweep on the racecourse, it cannot be very wrong to invest in one carried on in a private shop. The risk of swindling may be a little greater in tho one case than in the other, but a little watohfulneßS on the part of the investor can, to a great ex! out, provide against this. Once the principle is given up, it is hardly worth while fighting about detaili." It is Btuted in the Daily Titnet this morning, re the wrestling of Blade and Bobinson, that thero can be no contest for the championship of New Zealand exoopt with' Strong, who holds the Galodonian Society's belt as champion, not alone of this Colony but also ot Australia. By the rules of the Sooiety, Strong maintains a standing challenge to all coiners ; so that Slade, Bobinson, or any other person can have no difficulty in finding an opponent whenever they desire to contest the championship.

[ Pbb Pbbss Association.] The information against Walters, for unlawfully wagering and gaming, we 1 ) dismissed, on the ground that tho room in which the totalizator was worked was not a publio place.