TOTALISATOR TALK. A Powerful Foster – Mother.

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 143, 28 March 1903, Page 8

TOTALISATOR TALK. A Powerful Foster - Mother.

THE wily "two-up" player, the pernicious fan-tan fanatic, the gambling barber, and the gentleman who "calls the odds" on the racetrack, are being harried from pillar to post. The police, acting under instructions, are "putting down" gambling, and soon, if things go on as they have gone lately, there will be no means of turning a well-earned shilling into an unearned half-sovereign. No? Well, no other way beside the totalisator. Gambling is being "put down" mainly, we suppose, because the State wants its people to work for their money. It does not want the few haw ks to fatten on the earnings of the many doves, and it makes the flight cf the small kestrel an exceedingly painful one, and asks you to kindly stand aside for the eagle hawk. * * * Sir Robert Stout recently pointed out in a magazine article, that the "tote" takings had increased in a decade by nearly three>quartexs of a million. This may not be very terrible, but ordinary, everyday bookmaker-gambling is sinful, and should be stopped. Say that the bookmaker is the greater evil of the two, by reason of his human tendency to err on the side of his owti pocket. Would that extra three-quarters of a million have been spent among bookmakers and backers, Chinamen, and "two-up" players if the tote had not existed ? You may safely say that half the people who ring the bell with a

pound note would be adamant to the beseeching cry of the man. who yells the odds. Sir Robert Stout writes : "Women, from 17 to 70,year&.of age, are not ashamed to use the totalisator." Granting that this is so, without the tote w ould those females with such a disparity in ages use the bookmaker? i * * • Are all the ladies who love the legalised note-swallower "economic independents P" Will not Tommy probably go short of a pair of pants if No. 3 does not pay a dividend, or Mary do without her winter jacket if "green sleeves" happens to "pull" his mount? We all gamble. The little prattler at school plays marbles for "keeps," and the gentleman who buys the skim-milk section at £100, calls it oream next week, and wants £200 for it, are both gamblers. Common gambling with bookmakers, or cards, dice, or baccarat is sinful. It enthrals its devotees, and makes them quit looking for a job, providing always the proceeds are sufficient to keep the wolf from the door. * * * The State takes elaborate precautions to put its foot down on such sinfulness, but retains the tote. To be consistent, it should obliterate games of chance altogether, and squash the tote. People "ttould gamble still? Of course, but not to the same extent. Not aided and abetted by the State monitor of morals, it might keep some of its notes and pay its bills with them. New Zealand has too many small debt cases, and a great many of the small debtors alw ays have a pound or two for a '"flutter" on the tote. It is a source of income to the country, but so small a source that it might easily be "damned." * * * If the powers that be are sweeping up the little gamblers solely on account of the bad effect they have on the morals of the people, it is obvious that the motive is a good one, but that, in. thedr sweeping they, like a careless housemaid, forget the "corners." It is a case of the mote and the beam over again. What is sauce for the goose is saiuce for the gander, and either the whole box and dice should be swept out, or unstinted competition to the greedy tote be allowed.