THE CLERGY add THE SWEEPS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1009, 8 December 1881, Page 4

THE CLERGY add THE SWEEPS.

It is said that the ministers of Melbourne and the suburbs mean to petition Parliament against the monster sweeps. If it is true, it is only another instance of the clergy’s ignorance of other people’s business—and their own. Quite recently a New Zealand bishop and several other church dignitaries petitioned in favor -of the totaliser, on the ground that it did not encourage gambling. Yet the totaliser is not as innocent as the sweep. Do the clergy wish to force the thousands who now put a pound apiece in a sweep to back their favourites with the bookmakers ? For if they were to stop the sweeps to-mor-row, that is what would result from their ill-judged interference. Perhaps the gentlemen of the ring are at the bottom of this very moral little movement. Disinterested saints 1 A s for the parsons let them stick to their pulpits and influence from thence the ■morals of the community. For when they step down from that vintage ground, and “ take a hand in games they do not understand,” they become the unsuspecting dupes of those whose ways are dark, however “child-like aud bland!” . their outward demeanor.— JkLelbourne L. V. Gazette.