NO MORE BETTING.

Feilding Star, Volume XVII, Issue 300, 25 June 1896, Page 2

NO MORE BETTING.

While the member for Napier, Mr Carnell, has undertaken the abolition of the totalisator, Mr W. Hutchison, who represents the City of Dunedin, has undertaken to render penal the inciting of persons to betting or wagering. His "little Bill" is also drastic enough to satisfy the most fanatic moralist who ever worked his level best to clear his neighbors of their sins or to improve them in their shortcomings — whatever that phrase may mean. Mr Hutchison, in the goodness of his heart, wants to make incitement to betting a misdemeanour, so that the bettor and the bettee — either one or both of them — shall be liable, if convicted on indictment, to imprisonment with or without hard labour for a term not exceeding three months, or to a fine not exceeding one hundred pounds, or both imprisonment and fine ; and, if convicted on summary conviction, to imprisonment with or without hard labor for a term not exceeding one month, or to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds, or to both imprisonment and fine. The unlucky printers are not forgotten, and if anyone of them publishes in any newspaper, book, or other publication, information or advice on the subject of betting or wagering on any contingency whatever, he may be " sent up " for one month and fined twenty pounds. After all these terrible provisions to make people good (according to Mr Hutchison's ideas on that point) by Act of Parliament, and- — this is where the fun comes in — the stakeholder is to be absolutely protected by clause 4 of this fearful and wonderful Act. That is to say the chief accessory before, during, and after the offence escapes scot free. Now, let us suppose this Act became law, we ask what would be the result ? The reply is that if they were found out and convicted, the misdeamant men, women, and little children would represent such a majority it would be necessary to proclaim the whole colony of New Zealand a gaol to hold them.