THE GAMBLING QUESTION

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIII, Issue 1841, 23 August 1906, Page 2

THE GAMBLING QUESTION

ITS RELATION TO INOREABE OF CRIME. COMMENTS BY A GAOL GOVERNOR. {Special to Times.) Wellington, >ast night. Some refereoosß to the increase of crime in in. oolony in general, and in the Auok lani distrioe in par ioui-r, are contained in 1 e annual report of th- P ison Depart' meat, which was presented to Parli-maot lu cay. Mr 1\ E Severne, governor of Mount Eden gaol, in his report, makes the following interesting observations on the eubjeot. and the i xt u nt to whioh he oone aiders the gambling mania is responsible for the iooreass of offenders against the laws of the Lnd : " The great increase in the amount of crime as shown by the return attaobed is a oircumstance which cannot be tco lightly ignored. The canses of this deplorable slate of things are many, but the chief of them are very clear; so plain, indeed, that he who runs may read. A few years since the undoubted cause of most crime was drink ; but now lam inclined to attribute at least an equal percentage to gambling, more especially as it affects [ the youth of New Zealand. Gambling has become a mania with thousands of young men. Newspapers publish the fact that so many thousands of people' attended ench and euch a raoa meeting, and that between £ BO,OOO and £lf 0.000 was invested on the totalieator, as if it were something to be proud of. Few people who attend races do so from a desire to witness honest sport, but with the intentiou of making money—money for which they have net worked or earned in any proper sense of the word. If these young men cannot earn money enough to enable them to attend all the raoe meetings on week days and play 11 two up ” on Sundays, then they rob their employers, and if their ' offeDoe is discovered not one in twenty is prosecuted, and a still smaller percentage pup’shed, and so' the evil grows. There are too many young men in ihe towns, a great number of whom dislike steady work; they have too much time on ! their bauds, they want to .ffress above their means, and they oapnot get money honestly they steal jt and gamble with the proceeds of their thefts. Some years ago I drew attention to this rapidly spreading blight of gambling, and I do so_ once more, broiuse no one knows the various osuses of crime so well ps prison offioers, to whom almost every prisoner's previous oourse of life is known, My duty is done when I point out the great oause of crime, leaving it to others to devise a remedy.'’