GAMBLING IN SYDNEY.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 July 1922, Page 7

GAMBLING IN SYDNEY.

“ALMOST' UNBELIEVABLE.” 1 LORD MAYOR’S OPINION. Speaking at a farewell function to the Rev. R. B. J. Hammond, president of the Australian Prohibition Council, prior to his departure for New Zealand, the Lord Mayor of Sydney, Mr. W. P. McEihone, who presided, said he gladly did so as a tribute to Mr. Hammond’s valuable reform work. He took the chair as the chief citizen of Sydney in recognition of Mr. Hammond’s valuable services to the community, though he frankly did not believe in the prohibition movement. He was a believer in liberty—political and otherwise—and he regarded prohibition as an effort to interfere with the liberty of the individual. He suggested that the great movement with which Mr. Hammond was associated should direct its attention to the gambling evil. From his own experience, he knew more harm was being done by gambling in a day in Sydney than was being done by drink in a week. They might not know, but he did, that the bookmakers had representatives in all the big.business houses and offices and fac : tories in the city, as well as “touts” who called on the women in their homes. The amount of social wrong and the number of homes wrecked in and around Sydney through gambling was almost unbelievable, and he trusted some attention would be devoted to restricting this evil in some way.