AT HOME WITH THE LADY EDITOR.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 21, 21 May 1892, Page 532

AT HOME WITH THE LADY EDITOR.

Under this heading I am very pleased to reply to all queries that are genuine and helpful to the querist and others. Kindly write on one side oj the paper only, and address to the Lady Editor. GAMBLING AND BETTING. These sins are acknowledged to be the curse of the rising generation. The important question of how to abate them is one which is agitating all sorts and conditions of men and women. With the latter, 1 believe, rests the greater responsibility. Now a days there is a generally conceded opinion that women possess more influence than ever before in the world’s history (always excepting Mother Eve’s time). How is this influence being used ? In England, whilst there is amongst some women a great-deal of fuss and talk about slum work and charity organisations, and crusades against all imaginable vices, there is also a very real work being carried on by earnest women. Lady Sandhurst, who died just recently, was one example. A thoroughly bright, clever, and capable woman, she devoted her talents, time and strength, with the greatest earnestness to the practical help of the unfortunate in life, her home for cripples and incurables alone being a monument to her goodness of heart, and inexhaustible energy in well doing.

Two other ladies who are devoting themselves wholly to the cause of temperance with most substantial results are the Duchess of Rutland and Lady Henry Somerset, neither going to work in that superior, preaching way that is worse than nothing with the class they have to deal with ; but using their brightness of intellect, and practical sympathy, with weakness and temptation in place. The charity of these ladies, and others like them, make the * smart ’ bazaar species appear rather contemptible.

Talking of bazaars brings me at once to the root of the matter I wish to place before the women of New Zealand. At bazaars there is a fearful amount of gambling carried on. True, it is veneered with a thin excuse of custom, and a specious plea that it is ultimately to do good. But even if, oh, false and fair pleader, it does good to your church, adds a few new books to the choir, helps to pay for a new organ, etc., etc., should you do evil that good may come? What if the fun of rattling ‘ just-this once, you-only-put-in-a-shilling and-you-may-win-a-guinea-picture ’ or cushion, or any other seductive reason that may be urged, should cause the man dearest to you in the world to acquire a taste for gambling? ‘ Nonsense,’you declare. ‘ It’s only once in a way. It's the first time I It can’t do any harm/

Think for a moment. Every sin has a beginning. Do you wish to have your name associated in any man’s heart with the commencement of a course of gambling, betting, losing his own money, then helping himself to other people’s, finally discovery, disgrace, perhaps punishment ? And yet you are running the risk of this by encouraging a desire for gambling in the apparently innocent raffling at bazaars or art unions, and developing a taste for betting by your laughing request that your friend will put something for you in the totalisator, or bet just one pair of gloves on the favourite.

Am I my brother’s keeper? Most assuredly you ire, and for each young fellow you have assisted, directly or indirectly, to lead astray, tempting him to wrong-doing in this insidious fashion, you will be held accountable in that great day when all your sins of omission and commission are read out before an assembled world. Mothers and sisters, with you lies an awful responsibility. Are you doing all that lies in your power to discourage, nay, to openly combat this terrible tendency to betting anti gambling ? Even the very little children have caught the infection. Surely some of the pure, noble, and self respecting women of New Zealand can join together, forming a strong union, to prevent, in their presence, any betting and gambling whatsoever, and can agree to bring up their little ones to regard these two sins as positive crimes, leading, as they do, to such misery and shame. If any one likes to write to me on this subject I shall be most happy to further it to the utmost of my power.

E.B.S. writes: ‘Dear Lady Editor, —In answer to Mrs * L.M.’ I should like to make a few remarks. First, I do not think a child is better taught the use of money by having a “ definite sum ” a week at such an early nge, than by giving him or her occasionally a little when it is really wanted tor a particular purpose. I think a child might get fond of money by having it too soon. In the second place I beg to differ entirely from you about the saving. I believe

it would tend to make a child a miser if encouraged to save his money.’

Quite opposed to this is Miss A ’s letter: * Please allow me space for a few words about children’s allowances. I have taken care of my brother’s children for seven years, and have, with his consent, allowed them each twopence a week from five years' old until nine, when it was increased to threepence, the demand for knives etc., replacing wilfully-spoiled handkerchiefs, mending carelessly broken windows, etc., etc., really requiring the extra sum. No savings bank has ever been needed, as when a birthday loomed in the near future the children always voluntarily deposited twopence per week, or a penny, with me. I think it is an excel lentil an.’

Still another correspondent on the same subject: * I have read your remarks with great interest, and wish heartily to endorse them. We are very far from well off, but thanks to my own early training in having a definite allowance a week —for mere amusement as a child, for dress and all personal expenses as I grew older—l have been enabled to live within a very small income, knowing just how far money would go, and never buying anything 1 could not pay for. Men who are not rich, yet who could afford to marry were nice girls more used to economy, would not hesitate to go in for the luxury of a fireside of their own were they sure that the girl they loved had been brought up with a horror of debt and extravagance, and knew from personal experience how to make the most of a limited income.’