GAMBLING HELLS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 241, 9 March 1880, Page 2

GAMBLING HELLS.

’3;(From the Ashburton Guardian.) Every n >\v ami then we hear, from some part or other of the colony, of a raid having been made upon the hotels, for breaches of some description or other of the Licensing Act. Tin latest is from Wellington, where the police have been successful in gaining convictions against licensed victuallers for allowing gambling in their Images after midnight. In One of the cases reported, that of the I'e Aro Hotel, it was stated that mere lads from 18 to 20 had been permitted to stay in the house till late hours indulging in the dangerous dissipation, and the R.M. in dealing with the case, took occasion to rap the landlord smartly over the knuckles for harbouring the young men, at the same time adding that as Chairman of the Licensing Commission he would use his influence to have the license cancelled. We cordially agree with the Resident Magistrate in his decision, and hope he will be successful in shutting up a house conducted as Landlord M‘Anile’s is proved to have been. To a large j ortion of the community hotels are a hen e. There are many young men who prefer living in good hotels to make use of boarding houses,and thousands of [ e )ple whose mode of hving involves almost constant travelling, have to use hotels at every halting place on their journeys. In the interests of the public generally, as well as those persons to whom we have referred, it is imperative that licensed houses should be kept respectably, and the police ou.,h to be supported in every fair and legitimate effort to put down disreputable houses. There is no more powerful agent for the demoralisation of the people than is a badly conducted hotel. This is a fact that does not require any proof ; it is self-evident, and none know it better than the police ; for, where hotels exist in which any so t of blackguardism is allowed, where drink can be procured at all hours of the day and knight—week day and Sunday—the police get their hands full of cases that can be traced directly to these houses as their source. So great a power lor evil, then, it becomes the duty ot those who regulate the granting of licenses to be prompt in their action in dealing with hells of the Te Aro description, and to show no leniency whatever. Io allow t eir existence is to put a premium n the nursing of crime, an.l an insult to the men who hold licenses anil conduct their houses with a due regard to the law and their own se'f-respeci. A man who conducts his hotel in such a way that no re.-pectabic person need lie afraid to enter it and spend a nighvin it while travelling, deserves in these fines the moral countenance of the community in which he lives, and in his interest action slunld ■ certainly be taken against any hotel- : keeper wh > is so careless of his own | diameter, the good name of his house, : and the comfort of is pat ons, as to \ permit a congregation of gamblers, " young or old, to swarm in his rooms till : ail hours of the night It oug' tto he the duly of the t ommissiouers to rid j the community of such houses, and to be i voiv inqirsitive as to the character and bce'iiNOii ; but in too many instances the i Commiss.oners are content with, not ! always completely satisfactory evidence that there is nothing against an applicants character, when the u nothing” is there only because “ nothing ” has been bunted up. Any man able to raise the needful funds to start a hotel iu a place where be is not known ;s considered quite suitable as a publican. No matter what his antecedents—they seldom come up, and cure is taki n by him that they will not, if they are not clean ; but a close scrutiny would cause the rejection of many iu this colony who do obtain license. The Licensing Benches, too, we think, should be differently constituted. With many of the Commissioners no fault whatever can be found, but the selection of gentlemen to occupy the Licensing Benches is not always happy under the nomination system, and we contend that the Commissioners ought to be the representatives of the people in this matter as much as the members of County or Borough Conn ils are.