CROSSWORD PUZZLES.

Shannon News, 11 February 1927, Page 3

CROSSWORD PUZZLES.

A GAMBLING MEDIUM.

Cross-word puzzles have had a tremendous vogue in most English speaking countries, but the craze appears to have died out somewhat here in New Zealand. It is possible it may revive during the winter months. It still runs strongly in the Mother Country and, quite recently, a Sunday newspaper advertised that its readers might win £BOOO by solving cross-tvord puzzles. “The back page of the paper was (a writer in the London Spectator points out) entirely filled" by what he termed “commercial cross-word competitions to distinguish them from the competitions conducted by the newspapers themselves, most of which (he stated) are agreeable and ingenious entertainments and entirely free from objection." The commercialising of the cross-word puzzle has, however, introduced a certain gambling element into the business which can only be deprecated'. (To certain speculators these competitions have become a highly profitable enterprise. “The competitions promoted by these persons (the Spectator writer says) make the best possible demand on the ability and knowledge and skill of those who take part in them." They are gambles always with a catch in them. A competitor seriously attempting to win the prize may send in a large number of coupons, each accompanied by a postal note for [ sixpence or a shilling, and then fail, since one of the conditions of the competition is that “there shall bo no disputation," and the competitors arc thus debarred from claiming that their solutions are as good as the promoters ’ and-that they are thus entitled to “a share of the swag." Claiming direct knowledge of these competitions, received from one of the organisers of them, Mr. St. John Ervine, the writer in question, tells the story of a competition promoted by three men, each of whom contributed a thousand pounds towards the capital of the company. They inserted advertisements in popular Sunday papers and engaged a staff ot girl clerks to deal with the entries and the postal orders. Only ten replies were received on the Monday following the appearance of the advertisements. One picture advertisement alone had cost them £250 and their first day's receipts were only five shillings. But, on the Tuesday, 100 coupons were received and, on Wednesday, 1000 arrived. On Thursday a mail van was required to deliver the answers, and the postal orders had to be taken to the bank in portmanteaux. Three months after the competitions were started each of the promoters had made a clear profit of £IOO per week! The cost of the advertisements was over £2OOO per week, and a staff of thirty-five girls was employed in sorting the coupons. And that, Mr. St. John Ervine says, is the history of only one of the syndicates now engaged in this business. “It I is (as he adds) sufficient to show what { a hold this particular form of gambling * has upon the enormous public which is now trying to get something for nothing, or very much for»very little."