GAMBLING MANIA.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1552, 7 September 1905, Page 3

GAMBLING MANIA.

JUDGE EDWARDS’ OPINION OF THE TOrALISATOR.

In passing sentence in the A.R.C. embezzlement case, His Honor Mr Jußtioe JEdwards, addressing the jury, said it was most lamentable to see a young man who, op t 0 the time when he entered upon this crime, bore a good chareotor, yielding to temptation, induced by his surroundings, and becoming first a gambler and. then A thief. That the orime was due to the prisoner’s surroundings he (the judge) conceived to be highly probable, and it was most probable that the prisoner might have lived an honest, respectable life but for that curse to sooiety, the totaiisator—a legalised machine enabling the public of this country to gamble all the year round, every day and all day. Meetings were multiplied simply for the sake of the gains which were derived from that instrument of depravity. That there was an extraordinary lack of supervision exercised over the prisoner was alone quite plam, and the heavv temptation placed in the prisoner s wav y was plain. Still, - all that did not excuse crime. The prisoner choso to enter such service, and it was his duty to be faithful to his employers, oarrying on a letral business, if an immoral business, and to abstain from atealing their money. He (the Judge) was not without hopes that the prisoner might reform, and in that hope-and he (the Judge) thought it a reasonable f hope-be 'would impose. : a lenient sentence. - The amount was certainlv very large, and it might- seem to gome persons that the punishment should have some proportion to the amount 'That was not, however, the view he (the Tndee) took. Where there was systematic crime extending over a period it was not in bis (the Judge’s) view a matter o Whether the sum taken was largo or small Tt was the offenoß and the dishonest intention that must be punished, not mere y !ha amount stolen. It was also extremely probable that, with the folly and fatuity of a gambler, the prisoner hoped to be able tn recoup himself of the money be had stolen; by gambling to make good the defalcations. All that was- most Jikely, hnt nevertheless, this oouia not pass Not in the interests of the Racing Club, but in the interests of sooiety, the°crfmo must be punished. The sentence the Court would be that the prisoner be imprisoned and kept at hard labor in the common prison at Auckland for a g«iod of M calendar months,