The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1882. THE GAMING AND LOTTERIES BILL.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VII, Issue 637, 22 August 1882, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, AUGUST 22, 1882. THE GAMING AND LOTTERIES BILL.

Thb debate on the Gaming and Lotteries Bill was a very lively one. The Bill was a very short one, consisting of a single clause, which was as follows : — " The following proviso shall lie added to section nineteen of the said Act, and shall be rend and construed as part of the same, that is to say, — " Provided always that any sweepstakes or sweep drawn on an}' racecourse, on the occasion of any race-meeting, or on the ground and within view of any race, shooting, coursing, or other match, athletic contest, or game of skill, in which sweepstakes or sweep the stake or share of each individual participating therein shall not exceed the sum of five pounds, shall ho excepted from the operation of this Act." Mr Steward, in moving it, said that in the Act— " A provision was made which interfered with what was generally held by the public to te the little harmless excitement of a half crown, half-sovereign, or it might bo a sovereign sweep. There were sweeps and sweeps. The sweep to which he referred was not what was termed the Calcutta sweep, in connection with which there were very grave evils—that was to say, the sort ot' sale of horses, and with it the sale of men, which took place frequently the night before the race, and which led to the investing or wasting of large sums of money—but it was simply the correlative among men to the ladies* harmless bet of a pair of gloves. Very few persons who attended a race-cour.se were willing to forego the email amount of excitement, and pleasure which they derived, not from gambling, but from simply having a very small interest as to which horse would coma in first, by putting their half- ro-.vn or hair-sovereign into a friend's hat. Now, he was not going to say that that was the very highest form of enjoyment ; but that the Legislature did not last year consider it a very gieat ovil was evidenced by the fact that provision was made fer the use of an instrument known as the totalizator, in which not, only £1, but -il2, or £!}, or ill. or £5, or JilJ. or £50 could be staked by taking out so many shares in it. Now, if it were permi-siMe to invest £1 in the totalizator, surely it could not be so very wicked to place half a crown or even half a sovereign in a friend's hat. B-ice-mectings now more resembled funeral gatherings than anything else, and people all over the country were grumbling by hundreds and thousands at the Legislature for interfering with what they considered a little harmless amusement." The lion, member for Wairau, Mr Dodsou, said his experience was tho exact opposite. The people in his district defied the law, iiiid sweeps were carried on c cry where in defiance of the Act. The Native Minister expressed a holy horror of the Bill :— " It might be called a Children's Gambling Biil, and young people could find their shillings and half-crowns when they could not rind pounds and live pounds. Lot thv-in once go into sweeps arid they would get a taste for gambling which they would for life. lie happened to see on one occasion a commencement of that ti-'.i for gambling among- a certain lot of people, and ho 3a w it grow until it btcaine utterly abominable." Mr Joyce said that Church bazaars j were, alter all, the worst things to en- I courage gambling :— '

'• If they wanted to raise up in the minds of little children, young , girls, and youths n gambling spirit, let these Church bazaars go on. If not, let them put a stop to Church bazaars with as much stringency as sweeps, which in liis opinion were ii ■ finitely less harmful, He had not seen any mischief arising from sweeps, and .so far as the Act was concerned it had been a dead failure in respect to sweeps," Mr Fish, in the course of his speech, said:— "He would ask such as had been to Church bazaars what their experience was. Would not every man, if he spoke his mind, say that never in the whole course of hia existence had he been so shamefully robbed as at a Church bazaar? What had this legislation of the goodygoody kind done ? It had encouraged young girls not as high as his writing table to go round, dice-liox in huicl, beg ging persons tv take tickets at half a crown or five shillings each in raffles for articles which they knew were not worth one-tonth of the sum they were endeavoring to draw from the pockets of tho unfortunate victims. They had encouraged young girls who ought to have been better Drought up to carry on this fearful sin of, gambling which the Native Minster so earnestly desired to put down." Mr Bracken's celebrated song also occurred during thi-i defratc, which terminated in favor of the second reading of the Bill by a large majority. We canmt help in quite agreeing that it is the worst pjssible thing to pa sim practicable laws, or make anything a sin by compelling it to be done secretly. All will agree with us in thinking that however objectionable openly held sweeps may be, they are noi half as bad as those held secretly, aud to the majority of mankind they are not so enjoyable, for it is astonishing how many there are who delight in doing anything that is forbidden. . >