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Fair Play, Volume I, Issue 9, 30 December 1893, Page 3

We had something to say last week about the Australian Anarchists who are parading in the guise of “ The Active Service Brigade.” Our friend Desmond, Arthur Desmond, who, three years ago, attempted to establish a Labour paper in Wellington, has been haranguing a meeting of the loafers and “deadbeats” of Sydney. He declared that Sir George Dibbs had received £BSOO personally from bank shareholders to secure the passing of the New South Wales Bank Notes Bill, and the meeting passed a resolution calling upon Parliament to impeach Sir George Dibbs for high treason against the rights, liberties, and property of the people, and expressing the opinion that he should be* “ placed upon his trial and indicted as a public robber.” The public will take the hysterical utterances of these street-comer orators for what they are worth. *

For reckless and foolhardv feats and a species of wagering that smacks of congenital idiocy commend us to the average German student when he is fairly on the job and has been

challenged to do something that is a little out of the common. The following, whioh we olip from an exchange, is a speeimen: —“ An exceedingly senseless wager has recently been made in Munich. In an inn at Sohwanberg a student made a bet that he would eat six silk ties, cut up in small pieoes and seasoned with oil and vinegar. One of the conditions of the wager was that the speoies of salad must be Consumed within the spaoe of six minutes. The young man won his bet. The arbitrators who assisted, watch in hand, ac this curious and senseless performance, certified that the repast only occupied five minutes and thirty-five seconds, and while eating the ties the student drank no less than ten litres of beer.” A contemporary in commenting on the above wager says:—“ To what preposterous and dangerous folly will not beer easily lend itself.” In reply we would suggest that in all probability if it hadn’t been for the beer our necktie-eating friend would have been saddled with on acute attack of indigestion that might have ended fatally, wherefore we remark “ blessed are those who can appreciate in moderation the gifts that Providence has strewn in our pathway. ' 1

It appears that the polioe have had another attaok of virtue, and the result has been a raid on some of the bookmakers and totalisator shops. The incoherent irregularity with whioh those raids are made is extremely puzzling to the ordinary citizen, who is unable to fathom the idiosnycrasios of polioe management. For weeks during the racing reason they have remainod unmolested, and then all of a Buddon, for no apparont reason, the saturnine detective and tho festive policeman swoop down on them and confiscate their books and wealth, &c., and take down their names on lists, and threaton them with prosecutions and other divers terrors. After this ceremony is over, the representatives of the law ostentatiously paraded away, and the “bookie,” after going out for a drink, lays in a now lot of stationery, and opens up business again. Tho whole thing seems a dreary farce, intended to procure a paragraph or so in the daily papers, explaining how Constable Y or Detective X had n suspicion that gambling was going on in a certain placo, and how, finally, his suspicions were confirmed aftor a lengthy investigation, and after waiting until the hour of midnight or thereabouts, he, in company with several other officers, secured an entrance and confiscated the books and other implements of tho culprits. Why the necessity of obtaining clues and making lengthy investigations ? Why the necessity of postponing the raid until the bewitching hour of midnight or thereabouts ? and why, above above all things, the consequent drivel in tho daily papers about the clever capture made by Detective X or Constable Y ?

All this theatrical fanfaronade is as usoless as it is irritating and absurd. Everybody knows whore tho “ boo Mes” places are; they are advertised on theatre programmes and in the newspapers, and when the time for the annual raid comes round, why not send tho Police Court office boy to the shops that are on the black list, and politely ask the proprietors to come down and pay their license fee in the shape of the usual fine. It would be much more sensible, and would save a lot of annoyance to all parties concerned. There is another thing, with reference to the recent raid, that we dont quite understand. If it is illegal to make a book, isn’t one bookmaker just as culpable as another ? and if such be the case why should one be passed over and another prosecuted? Is it an introduction of chance into public management, or what ? We speak from a purely dispassionate point of view, as we neither backed the winner nor went down on a “ stiff-’un” during the last races, but we are- filled with a large comprehensive curiosity, and we would like to know the reason of all these things.'" s ’ V'"”