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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 1017, 29 December 1881, Page 2

It is high time that the public should cry out against such a tyrannical piece of legislation as the Gaming and Lotteries Act. It is only by such ex f periments as have been recently tried by Sir William yFiTZHEBBERT, the Honorable the Speaker of the Upper House, that the defects of such a law becomes more prominently before the notice of the public. It can hardly be expected that many persons will care to put themselves forward as scapegoats for the purpose of testing the legal consequences of an oppressive enactment. Notwithstanding the revelations that have yet been made, it must not by any means be supposed that even the tenth part of the absurdities of the Gaming and Lotteries Act have been exposed. The suppression of what is known as gambling “ hells,” is a wise and most necessary act on the part of the Legislature. The subject has occupied the mind of legislators in many parts of the world, and, both in England, and on the Continent stringent measures have been resorted to in order to bring about the result desired. It would seem, however, as if it were reserved for New Zealand to “ out-Herod Herod ” on the subject. In fact to go so far as to render it positively dangerous for a party of school girls to indulge in the innocent game of cards known as “ Matrimony” without being liable to the most serious consequences. By serious consequences we mean that the apartment occupied by them, could, according to statute, be entered, and “all instruments of gaming ” seized, and the parties themselves brought before the police court. The mere suspicion that persons are playing any game for money, no matter how trivial the stake, or how innocent the game, suffices to empower an officer of justice, if he feel so disposed, to forcibly enter a dwelling, whether a private or a public one, and convey the occupants thereof to the local watch-house. Will such a law—or rather a law containing such provisions—be tolerated ? We say confidently that ic will not ; and we are strengthened in that belief by the assurances publicly given by many of the candidates lately returned to Parliament, who pledged themselves to their constituents to take steps to have the obnoxious clauses of the Gaming and Lotteries Act repealed.

The usual report from the Southern Cross Petroleum Company’s Works arrived by the mail on Monday evening : from it we learn that the progress has been exceedingly slow, only eleven additional feet having been sunk since the 17th inst. Constant and stronger jets of gas are met with as the depth increases, some of which have a violence very difficult to conceive the strength of. The. bottom rock is smashed up for a considerable distance, and the debris is blown up the tube, the latest explosion having filled it up to a height of 25 feet. According to the latest accounts the contracrors had beenunable io lower this extraordinary mullock heap, for as fast as the sand pump takes it away, the thrust from the bottom elevates more, so that there is no resource but to wait patiently for the strength of the blast of gas to abate by its being set free. The evidence is strong that the seat of a substantial vein of petroleum is not far distant, and presuming the tubes can be sunk, a very short time may see this promising and persevering company into payable oil. From the Melbourne advices the shareholders have pre-eminently cheerful Christmas news. The paraffin is apparently divested in Melbourne of Dr. Hector’s bugbear of doplerite, for the yield of light oils from two charges reach the respectable quantity of half a barrel, and the heavy oils and paraffin were not yet touched. As the capacity of the still -was only 20 gallons, and capable of holding about 1 cwt., the experiment would take about 16 days to complete ; therefore at any moment we may expect the condensed lieport of the Committee in Melbourne by cable, when no doubt, with the usual commendable alacrity to afford information, the Company will avail itself of the willingness of the local press to chronicle the (let us hope) successful result.