Gambling on Steamers.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 200, 23 April 1887, Page 5

Gambling on Steamers.

Gambling on steamers plying 1 between Eulope and the United States has assumed such va&t proportions during the past year ah. to call for a most emphatic protest from many travellers on the ocean ferry, some of whom, in letters to the public press in England, advocate the boycotting of lines where not only high play but barefaced swindling is openly allowed. Many excursionists have been fleeced of their letters of credit for a tour on their way to Europe, and several cases are reported where money had to be borrowed in order to take a return ticket on the next steamer. Many captains claim that they have no light to interfere in such cases, and they cannot insult their passengers by putting up a placard in the smoking-room " to beAvarc of sharpers. " There are some commanders, however, who possess a higher sense of their duties, as is shown by the following letter t hat recently appeared in the London " Times" from an American : " My experience is that it rests with the captain of the ship, and if all captains were to do as Captain Haines did on the Aurania last October in crossing to New York, the smoke-room as a gambling hell would soon become extinct. A complaint was made by a passenger the second day from Queenstown that he had been cleared out at poker by two professional Atlantic gamblers who were aboard. Captain Haines at once came into the smoke-room and made a speech to the following effect : -"Gentlemen, Ido not object to a quiet game at whist on board my ship, but poker and other gambling games I do object to. I have come to warn you that there are two professed gamblers on board. They are known to me ; I can see them nowf but I will not look at them. I now warn them that if they play another game of poker or other gambling game on board this voyage I will at once have them put in irons and kept prisoners until we reach New York, where I will then hand them over to the authorities." Loud cheei\s greeted this speech, and from that time to reaching New York, not another game of cards, except whist, was played on the steamer. "