The Ashburton Guardian. Manga Est Veritas et Prevalebit MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1883. Moral Legislation.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1050, 17 September 1883, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Manga Est Veritas et Prevalebit MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1883. Moral Legislation.

The Honorable Mr Dick, the Rev Mr Green and the other excellent persons who, during the last two or three years, have been diligently striving to legislate us all up to their own high standard of moral purity, have, like numerous well-meaning but injudicious “world-betterers” who have gone before them, failed to achieve their philanthropic objects, but they have nevertheless succeeded in bringing about a highly peculiar state of the law. Two illustrations of this fact have recently been given in Canterbury. Gambling is a vice which our social reformers have made up their minds to put down with the strong hand. Recent legislation on the subject might almost be described as ferocious in its character. The only wonder is that the offence of losing a£s note at 100 has not been made a capital one. Our legislators’ ability in framing laws is, however, much inferior to their zeal for morality. Hence despite the penal clauses of the Gaming and Lotteries Act and the Licensing Act, we find gambling flourishing just as much as ever, and the Acts failing to meet the very cases where their operation would be most desirable. The other day a publican was fined £5 in the Christchurch Police Court for allowing “ euchre ” to be played in his hotel for money. He appealed to the Supreme Court, which quashed the conviction on the ground that euchre is not an “ unlawful game ” within the meaning of the clause in the Licensing Act under which the information was laid. Could anything be more absurd ? Here is a clause put into the statute for the express purpose of stopping gambling in public-houses, and yet the Supreme Court decides that it does not apply to the game of euchre, which is of all games of cards played in the colony probably the most popular, and when played in public-houses is, nine times out of ten, played for stakes of some sort. In most cases, indeed, the stakes are, we dare say, trifling, and no great harm is done; but the point we wish to bring out is that notwithstanding all our virtuous legislation and the determination in high places to stamp gambling out from the land, the law is, nevertheless, found to be incapable of touching one of the commonest of gambling games.

The other illustration to which we refer was afforded in the Ashburton Police Court a few days ago. A young man t was brought up charged with a breach of the Gaming and Lotteries Act. It appeared that one night, finding the time in “bachelor’s hall” hanging rather heavy on his hands, he whiled the weary hours away by playing a game of bluff with a friend who had dropped in to see him, and by the close of the sitting was a loser to the extent of twenty odd pounds. Now, most people would consider that the loss of his money was a sufficient punishment for his folly. The police, however, thought differently. They conceived that a breach of the Gaming and Lotteries Act had been committed, and acting doubtless from a belief that they were performing their duty (for there is no reason to suppose they were actuated by any other motive), they arrested this indiscreet youngman in Christchurch just as if he had been a common thief, and dragged him before the Resident Magistrate of that city, who remanded him to Ashburton. He was, however, graciously permitted to go at large on bail, although that bail was fixed at such an enormous figure —himself in £SOO and two sureties of each —that many a man would have been unable to obtain it. When the case came on for hearing, the counsel for the defence urged that the Act did not apply to a case like this, where the defendant had simply played at a casual game for money in his own private house with a friend, and the Bench agreeing with this view—and we think rightly —discharged the accused. Provided, therefore, a man refrains from making his dwelling-house a common gaming-house within ,the meaning of the Act we see here another means by which the spirit of gambling can find vent for its exercise.

Casting our eyes upon the racecourse, from which beneath the purifying influence of the Gaming and Lotteries Act the betting man was to disappear, and the sinful investor in the half-crown sweep was to be effectually debarred from such unholy speculations, we find more money lost and won by betting than ever. The totalisator, which was to be the grand engine of moral purification, has taught people to bet who never bet before, and every visitor to a racecourse to regard a pound or two for the totalisator as part and parcel of the day’s expenses. Formerly betting, strictly so-called, was confined to a limited circle. It had its mysteries, and the want of knowledge of these mysteries deterred many persons from staking their money on chances which they had no means of computing. But every intelligent man can understand

the principle of betting as embodied in the totahsator; its index plainly discloses the state of the odds, and there can be no cheating. Hence, hundreds and thousands of pounds are freely staked by its means; while private betting goes on just as before, save that heavier bets are made, so that more money is lost and won; while even the half-crown sweep, which seems to be the bcte noir of our legislators, is drawn in quiet corners, and enjoyed with all the zest which arises from the eating of forbidden fruit. Outside the course, “ consultations ” flourish all the year round, and if the Calcutta sweep has been pretty well banished from the land, the money formerly spent over it is used for betting in other ways. It really seems to us that the Gaming and Lotteries Act, instead of stifling betting and gambling has added fuel to the flame and increased the love for this kind of speculation. The fact is to be deplored, for while we are unable to see any serious moral offence in the staking of trifling sums ot money in the shape of bets or on games of cards, we do think that gambling, properly so-called, is a vice which leads grave evils in its train, and one to be suppressed by all legitimate means. We are, however, equally convinced that it cannot be stamped out by legislation alone ; still less can it be suppressed by drastic Acts of Parliament, which confound innocent amusement with criminal folly, and fail to make allowance for the ordinary weaknesses of human nature. In matters of this kind, the influence of the moral teacher must precede that of the legislator.