RAFFLES.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3489, 1 March 1880, Page 3

RAFFLES.

Says a Canterbury Exchange :—" PreTious to Mr Whitefoovd's departure from Poverty Bay—where, by the bye, he soon became as popular almost as he is in his own district—he had to dispose of a singular case at the Gisborne Police Court. A respectable man was charged by the local police with hating been " beneficially interested in a raffle." To the ear of the majority of colonists, this charge must sound very peculiar. There are raffles drawn in every part of the Middle Island and, let us say in most of the Northern isle, almost every day. Clergymen take a hand in the seimeambling pastime, and so do elderly and juvenile ladies of largely-seated propensities. From the Consultation man who enters your name in a racing sweep, to the pious cleric who wishes to see the tail end of a church debt wiped off, there is a social margin of considerable elasticity. All kinds of good natured and honest people take part in railes at some period of their life or another, and the matrimonial market even is not free from the fascinating halo which surrounds that mild kind of gambling. But to our Gisborne case again. The high cWss misdemeanant brought before Mr Whitefoor^lfor " being interested in a raffle admitted the charge at once. Some article of value had been raffled, and he, the culprit, Jiad taken a ticket, that is to say, had becornlTlnsubacribei'* as many other dreadful criminals of the same class had .also done at the same time. The defence stated that it has been the custom from time almost immemorial, for raffles to be got up in hotels J and public places, not only in Poverty Bay, but in all other places in the colony as well. The defendant never dreamt that he was committing a guilty act when taking a tioket in the raffle in question. Mr Wbitefoord admitted that this was doubtless the case; we was aware that raffles were of very common occurrence. Tet there happened to be an old Provincial Ordinance of Auckland which had never been repealed, although it had certainly lain dormant covered with the dust of ages, and under the Ordinance in qnestion all kinds of raffles were unlawful. The unfortunate defendant was fined 40s. and costs, as directed by the Statute, and the law—of Auckland— was duly vindicated. What about the results of Abolition, it may be asked. Several years ago Provincialism was done away with, its opponents bringing forth as one of the main reasons fora central state of Government that the fame Queenly writ would run through the land, and that people thereby would greatly benefit. This Gisborne case, insignificant as it at first sight seems to be, gives a very fair instance of the half and half shoddy way in which the Legislature has done it§ work since Abolition stamped out the old constitutional system of the colony. In no way have we been the gainers by the change.