Untitled

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XVI, Issue 4976, 15 March 1895, Page 2

Tim Government appear to be doing good service in the Railway department by limiting the use of free railway passes, In the past a somewhat indiscriminate issue of sncli passes has umlonbtably increased the taxation of the country, Theoretically there ought to be 110 free passes at all, but this is a pitch of virtue to which even a democracy cannot attain. If a parliamentary return were made each year showing the number of free passes issued and Hie class of person to whom they wore given, the plague might be stayed. Publicity is the best chuck on the exorcise of privilege, and the best protection for the railway reyenue.

At the Opaki Race Meeting yesterday, the bookmakers are said to have had quite a little holiday. It is not unusual for clubs of standing to keep such gentry at arms' length, but on this occasion, they appear to have been allowed to do just what they liked with the public, and this means a good deal. The Club will lose prestige, unless for the future it makes up its mind to fake a much firmer stand, than it did yesterday. Tho totalisator is bad enough as an extractor and retainer of money, but when a brigade of bookmakers are working in opposition to it, and giving odds against it, the chances of the public leaving the meeting with a red cent in their pockets, is but a poor one!