CORRESPONDENCE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 91, 19 April 1871, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

*** We arc desirous of affording every reasonable facility for the discussion of public subjects; but it must be understood that we are in no way responsible for the opinions expressed by correspondents. GAMBLING Versus MORALITY. To the Editor of the Nulson Evening Mail. Sir — Not many years since it was openly and unblushingly maintained that slavery was no evil, but was a divinelyappointed institution to benefit alike master and slave. That question is now decided and set at rest by the irresistible lr><jic of events. Your contemporary the Examiner in its leading article of Friday last opens up another question, and that, too, in a tone and manner so arnaziugly like poking fun at its readers, that it was only the serious nature of the subject that impelled me to doubt no longer as to the purport of such smart writing. "Don't you think," says Lady Teazle in answer to certain suggestions of Joseph Surface, " that the less we talk about honor the better?" This expression' occurred to me while perusing the article to which I have alluded. It is humiliating to think that such teaching as the following should be offered as an apology for the "Turf": — "Gambling is a natural taste and must be permitted, like other human tastes, to have its proper and wholesome exercises." * * * Certainly gambling is human and pleasant, and in moderation ought to be, and will ever be, maintained." After this, what can be said iv favor of healthy principles of morality, or of listening to so much talk, or of eatertainiug any solicitude about the virtue of the age, or its moral superiority to those times when cock-fighting, prizefighting, and other brutalising pastimes were rife, and in the low and vulgar enjoyment of which were found the " tickling essence of uncertainty — the titillations of suspense which, more than the exercise of science, constitutes the great pleasure of gambling. Into the merits of the illogical and unfair analogy drawn between " Mr. Yogel and his underlings," and the " venerable practices of honest gambling," I abstain from eutering (it i 3 too contemptible to notice), and I only allude to it in proof of the degrading nature and influence of the vocation out of which it has evidently arisen. That vocation I have no hesitation in affirming, to be the vocation of the gambler. The habitue of the tables beneath the roofs of the Kursal at Hamburg or Baden-Baden is no wit more a gambler than the habitue of the turf. The man whose time is occupied with the considerations of how he may stake money upon hazard whether upon horses, cards, dice, or any thing else; whether engaged in present play or calculations for the future, is, to all intents and purposes, a gambler, and nothing but a gambler. Does the turf lead to this ? My answer to any such question is — read the Examiner of Friday last, and say if it is possible that any very refined notions of pure morality can be entertained by those who are associated with, and engaged in, the excitements and pursuits inseparable from such a connection as theirs must be with the turf. And is this a vocation fit for gentlemen or Christians ? Is it worthy of pursuit by one who has any pretensions to moral and intellectual culture ? And, if it would be debasing as a mercenary trade, is it not more so when followed as a voluntary occupation ? It is idle to say that but for the turf the breed of horses would deteriorate — that racing has become an institution with us, and that it is in accordance with our character, manners, and habits, that such an institution should be upheld. I deny it. Did races not exist we should still have sufficient for all : reasonable purposes in an adequate supply of horse-power; and, at all events, it is better that the breed of horses should deteriorate than that the people should deteriorate more. It is not many years since we were told that the King was' a British institution, and that the pluck of the prize fighter was to be encouraged and admired as a symbol of the pluck of every Engßshman; but this nonsense is,. except in certain sporting papers, no longer repeated, v I consider that neither racing, nor gambling, its concomitant, adds anything to the dignity, benefit, or virtue of this colony, but, on the contrary, that both are productive of much evil, without actually producing, or being capable of producing, any corresponding good. I regret, therefore, that so much prominence should be given to the turf, and that, it should be treated as a legitimate amuse-., •ment,: and a\national desideratum, . and that moreover an.iapology for. it should jbe based upon the wanton assumption that gambling; supplies a: natural taste, and' ;that it ought to be maintained. my estimation, t.he,tujrf is nothing but a more,, comprehensive '.field for the operations' of the gamester, aided, by the. treachery iof the knave, and the ignorance of the fool. ' T ;:l : ' ! : ' ! ' i; " :: lam,'<&k# j ...•'•.." •;• Mi •■■■■,. .jivAjm-TuEF.! l ' u