HOTELKEEPERS AND BOOKMAKERS

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1652, 20 January 1913, Page 8

HOTELKEEPERS AND BOOKMAKERS

Sir,—l heartily endorse the remarks of your correspondent whoso letter appeared this'morning urging that hotelkeepcrs who tolerate and cncourngo bookmakers and their clerks should'forfeit their right to hold a license to run on/ hotel. It is nothing more than a scandal to soo tho way travellers and guests at (juito a number of the leading hotels in New . Zealand are pestered' with theso bookmakers to take wagers on forthcoming events, and not n few ore changing their quarters sooner than be postered with tnese toto ' bettors and their satellites. Tho reason why somo hotelkeepcrs encourage tho • bookmaker-' is easily understood; it is sViply on account of the mo'noy they sbend. in champagne, and tho "mugs' wlio help them 'to drink tho wine. If they t can succeed in getting tho punters to drink Heidsick and dry mdnopole, they will not only talk abont their rich relations but talce as many doubles as the bookmakers wish to lay them. Honco the reason why tho bookmakers can'spend more money in hotels tlmfi tho ordinary individual, and tho publican who is not competent to run a first-class hotel tolerates, tho presence of bookmakers dn preference to tho respectable citizen, bucli treing tho case, and if bookmakers are goimr to lie permitted to continuo their illegal calling in defiance of the law and efforts of those members of the police force who are anxious to suppress them, let the Licensing Committees all over New Zealand make a move and protect tlw publican who conducts his hotel in a respectable and honourable, manner, and declines to allow these undesirables to frequent his hotel, and refuse to grant licenses to the liolellteoper who is in sympathy with tho bookmaker and his confederates,—l am, etc., TRAVELLER. ■ Wellington* Janumy 17, J