THE DERBY AND GAMBLING.

Hawke's Bay Weekly Times, Volume 1, Issue 39, 23 September 1867, Page 233

THE DERBY AND GAMBLING.

Mb. Gold win 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 tha'fc amongst the cheering which hailed ’tlie success of the victor, 'was to be ‘heard here and there a sound; half scream," half sob, telling a tale of heavy loss, if not of absolute'ruin."’ Subsequent' report seems to Confirm' tlie tale.

° “Thfo is the "spectacle which Lord Palmerston" compared to the Isthmian games. Tt is about as like the Isthmian games as the character:of Lord Palmerston was like the character, cast in a narrow bur genuine aud noble mfould,' of the Greek hero. The reward of the victor at the Isthmian gameswas a crown of leaves; but witfoan in- , scription on endtiHng marble in bis city£2 and the more enduring monument of Pindar’s verse. Of 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 iri autiqiiity for these sports of" ours, it should be sought rather in the deliriousand degraded passion of the Rbraan circus in the last age of degenerate Rome.' It is needless to say that this is horse-racing no longer. It is. a gigantic system, or rather frenzy of national gambling. Thehorses 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 want of anything better, gamblers have been known to stake thoir money. The whole kingdom, at the l approach of the Derby, becomes a gamingtable, at which men who never saw a horse race, who could not tell the points of a iiorse, who would not know Hermit from a hack, and even women and boys, hasten to taste the vile delight of gambling,-"often to their demoralisation, sometimes to their ruin. ‘ ' " '

“As to the preteno9 of keeping up the. breed of hordes; it •is needless to say that it is'about as Talid and about as sincereHsthe defeiice of fox-hunting, on-the-grouud that it clears tlie country of vermin. Gambling—gambling, every year more extensive; every year for higher stakes, as t-lfo need of- excitement increases—this is now the grand national amusement, and i's crisis is the great* national event. The men of the Commonwealth put a stop to bear-baiting, and other ‘ sports ’ of that time. This is set down as a proof of their tnoroseness, and Macaulay sayd, in liis-epi-grammatic way, that the bear-baiting was put down, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. Yane or Cromwell would probably have answered that it was-not because it gave, pleasure, but because it gave pleasure that was ignoble, unmanly, and degrading, unworthy alike of a Christian and. English citizen. Those days, however, are gone-by. Nobody would now propose to interfere legally with any amusements not contrary to publio order or decency. We have learnt that a censorship of mauners in attempting to cure throws in the disease. If, indeed, as the Times tells us, the aristocracy,four, hereditary legislators, are gambling away' their estates aiid impoverishing their titles, it may become necessary that tlie State shoiild step in for the. protection of hereditary wiadbm.- But,otherwise, as offences against Heaven must be ; left to the jurisdiction of .Heaven,-so moral: deseases must be left to moral cures.” ‘ " , ;