GAMBLING.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 869, 16 July 1910, Page 3

GAMBLING.

Sir, —Will you allow me a few lines of your valuable space to protest against the methods ot the Anti-Gambling League in attacking only .the bookmaker and the totalisator form of the gambling vice. If the-evil is to be put right, sir, I content that all forms of the evil should be attacked at' once. For instance, the Stock-Exchange gambling which goes on from day to day must, in the long run, do more harm to the community at large because the commodities of the public are • exploited by a businessgang of bandits' for. profit, and especially where the foodstuffs of the people are, concerned in this form of gambling such part of-the evil is indecent aud immoral and should be suppressed. Land gambling and its attendant evils, the jerry-builder, .the usurer, arid inflated land values should be made criminal, as thrifty folk who have saved money enough to put them on'the way to purchase a home, unless they are. experienced in the wiles of the above-mentioned gentry, are plnndcred right aud left by gamblers of the worst description. Gambling in the. circulation ot newspapers by offering prizes to the person bringing the most subscribers to a paper should also be suppressed as it is gambling .puro and' simple. And at church bazaars wo find that the purses of the public attending are made to suffer in raffling, which', after all, is a modified form of gambling. It comes to this, sir, that if one section of the public.is made to suffer because they wish to invest a few pounds with '-'bookies," whilst another lot can easily gamblo money. in such ventures as I have mentioned above, little old New Zealand will soon bo a good conntry to be out of. I hope to see Sir Joseph Ward turn on this deputation and put the acid on them .properly by | denouncing some business men's Vices in the above-mentioned respects, and I fancy that all this .'"frothing" will soon 'cease as these gentry will be hit right where thoy live.—l am, etc., I T , , P- M'COLL. x July 14.