BOOKMAKERS ENCOURAGED

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8348, 7 February 1913, Page 7

BOOKMAKERS ENCOURAGED

INCITING YOUNG MEN TO GAMBLE. POSTAL SERVICE ACCUSED OF AIDING AN D ABET'iTN G. Special to the “Times.” CHRISTCHURCH, February 6. Commending editorially on the business still being conducted by bookmakers, “Tho Press” says: “We regret to say that we have evidence before us showing that tho Postmaster-General is aiding and abetting the bookmakers in offering incitements to young men to gamble on horse racing, irrespective of the totaliaator. Wo have before us bookmakers’ cards offering odds up to as much as 1000 to 1 on various racing ‘doubles.’ Those cards were posted in unsealed envelopes and addressed to youths in city offices who, wo aro assured, are under twenty-one years of ago. They have been accepted in bulk and stamped by tho Post Office, and bear a notification that if they are unclaimed they are to bo returned to a certain box at the General Post Office. It appears, therefore, that tho Post Office is facilitating the bookmakers’ operations by giving them a private box, conveying their betting cards throngh the mail, and accepting these documents and stamping them in bulk to further lighten tho labour of the senders We certainly think tho law ought to ho altered so that all bookmakers might be put on the list of those whoso correspondence is prohibited from being sent through the post. No private letter-box should bo allotted to a bookmaker, and we think that power should be given to a postmaster to stop letters suspected to contain incitements to betting uud Forward them to Wellington so that they may bo opened at headquarters and their delivery stopped if the suspicion is proved to bo correct.