THE DERBY AND GAMBLING.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume XII, Issue 511, 23 September 1867, Page 1

THE DERBY AND GAMBLING.

iln. Goldwiu Smith, in a letter to the Manchester Examiner, makesthe following remarks on the subject of gambling at the Derby :

“The correspondent of one of the journals, describing the Derby, says that amongst the cheering which hailed the success of the victor, was to be ‘ heard here ai d there a sound, half scream, half sob, telling a tale of heavy loss, if not of absolute ruin.’ Subsequent report seems to confirm the tale.

“ This is the spectacle which Lord Palmerston compared to the Isthmian games. It is about, as like the Isthmian games as the character of Lord Palmerston was like lho character, cast in a narrow bur genuine and noble mould, of the Greek hero. The reward of the victor at the Isthmian games was a crown of leaves ; but with an inscription on enduring marble in his city, and the more enduring monument of Pindar’s verse. Ol betting I believe we have no record. If any sobs or screams mingled with the exultation of victory, they told only of the honorable agony of defeat. If a parallel is to be sought rather in antiquity for these sports of ours, it should be sought rather in the delirious and degraded passion of the Roman circus in tiie last age of degenerate Rome. It is needless to say that this is horsu-rucing no longer. It is a gigmtic system, or rather frenzy of national gambling. The horses are no more than the two straws pulled from a haystack, or the two drops of rain running down the window pane > on which, for wmt of anything better, gamblers have been known to stake their money. The whole kingdom, at the approach of the Derby, becomes a gamingtable, at w hich men who never saw a horse race, who could not tell the points of a horse, who would not know Hermit from a hack, and even women and boys, hasten to taste the vile delight of gambling, of'eu to their demoralisation, sometimes to their ruin.

*■ As to the p-etence of keeping up the breed of horses, it is needless to say that it is about us valid and about as sincere as the defence of fox-hunting, on the ground that it clears the country of vermin. Gambling —gambling, every year more extensive, every year for higher stakes, as the need of excitement increases—tins is now the grand national amusement, and its crisis is the great national event. The men of the Commonwealth put a stop to bear-bailing, and other ‘sports’ of that time. Tins is set dowu as a proof of their ■noroseness, and Macaulay says, in liis epigrammatic way, that the bear-Oailiug was put down, not because it gave pain to the near, but because it gave pleasure to Hie spec ators Vane or Cromwell would probably have answered that it was not because it gave pleasure, but because it gave pleasure that was ignoble, unmanly, ami degrading, unworthy alike of a Christian ami Kurdish eii izeu. Those days, however, are gone by. INohody would now propose to interfere leg dly with any amusements not contrary to public order or decency. We have learnt that a censorship of manners in attempting to cure throws in the disease. If, indeed, as the Times tells us, the aristocracy, our hereditary legislators, are gambling away tiieir estates and itnpoveidsliing their titles, it may become necessary that the State should step in for the protection of hereditary wisdom. But, Otnerwise, as offences against Heaven must be left to the jurisdiction of Heaven, so moral dese.ases must be left to moral eu res.”