GAMBLERS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 2, Issue 173, 31 May 1879, Page 2

GAMBLERS.

The Australasian is very severe on gamblers. Regarding the betting ring, it siiys i~ v We have no hesitation in stating that the betting ring as at present constituted here is the curse of any sport with which it is associated. It has degraded the turf until it has become a, sport with which few gentlemen now care to be mixed up, and in which the sole end and aim now is to win money. The thoroughbred horse is now, in fact, merely a means to an end, and that end £s.d. The betting ring, by which racing is maintained,'is composed both here and in Grea|>J3ritain, in the. main, of what may boiled the scum of society. There are 'mSf respectable men in it, but the majority are neither . more nor less than thoroughbred ruffians, and no one who has any experience of the ring would desire question our assertion,. In Great Britain, in the , neighborhood of all largo cittes, it is |f scarcely safe for any respectable person to, attend a racecourse, If not robbed and hustled, lucky is the individual who escapes having his ears polluted by the ribaldryiand obscenity that abounds. So great is the evil that the T? acecouvsea Bill has been introduced and carried, and that will effectually stifle the gate-money meetings within a certain distance of London. A late Governor in these colonies was wont at times to uphold the turf, and described it as a sport in which gontlemen could, with respect to themselves, take a part. But he surely shut his eyes to the fact, of which lie could hardly help being aware, that of the leading supporters of racing here the majority have not a soul or thought beyond the money they can make by it. It is shown day after day, year after year, moro and mora clearly; and it is quite time that the Legislature should deal with the question of betting and the toleration of defaulters and rufli- . ans that disgrace the turf, when tho leading members of the racing community, it is well known, sympathise with the ring, and are so intimately mixed up with them that they are blind to tho iniquities that prevail.

The Rev T. De Witt Talmage Bays Home has lost all charms for the gambler. How tame are the children's caresses and a wife's devotion to the gambler. How drearily the fire burns on tho domestic hearth. There must be louder laughter, and something to win and something to lose ; an excitement to drive the heart faster and fillip the blood and firo the imagination. No home, however bright, can keep back the gamester. The sweet call'of lovo bounds back from, his iron soul, and all endearments are consumed in the fiamo of his passion. The family Bible will go after all other treasures are lost, and if his crown in heaven were put into his hands he would cry, " Here goes one more game, my boys! On this one throw I stake my crown of heaven," To a gambler's death-bed there comes no hope. He will probably die alone. His former associates come not nigh his dwelling. When 'the hour comes, his miserable soul will go out of a miserablo life into a miserable eternity, As his poor remains pass the house where he was ruined, old companions may look out a moment and say, "There goes his old carcass, dead at last," but they will not get up from the table. Let him down into his grave. Plant no tree to cast its shade there, for the long, deep, eternal gloom that settles there is shade enough, Plant 110 " forget-me-nots" or eglanfitineSy around the spot, for flowers were not made to grow on such a blasted heath. Visit it not in the sunshine for that would be mockery, but in tho dismal night, when no stars are out, and the spirits of darkness come down horsed on tho wind, then visit tho grape of the gambler.