The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42

IV.—Gambling

IV.—Gambling.

'Ye have sown much and bring in little, and he that earneth wages earneth wages, to put them into a bag with holes."

Haggai. i., 5.

I Am thankful to believe that in dealing with gambling I shall be speaking to many in an unknown tongue, though I am sorrowfully aware that experience will be a ready interpreter to others. It is not possible for me to enter at length into all the back ways of this subject. The practice of betting in connection with the races must, however, be sketched at least sufficiently to indicate its extent and distribution in Dunedin.

Lotteries are frequent in Art Unions and Church Bazaars. These are practically "sweeps," only in bazaars there is but one prize, and these raffles may be innocent of the associations of the racecourse. Cards are played in the majority of middle-class houses, and in all the hotels. I cannot see that a rubber at whist for the fun of the thing is wrong any more than back-gammon. The evil lies in the gambling allied with it, and the bad associations into which the passion will draw the careless. The winnings of one evening may be £400. No skill whatever is requisite for playing with dice. Shakes, Yankee grab, and Hazards are the popular games. At the latter a comfortable tradesman has been known to lose his home, his section, and his business. Betting is an attempt to force on excitement out of any events by calculating the chances and risking money upon them. Any unknown event can be made the occasion of this practice, and indeed is made so. At the last election, odds were freely laid on the several candidates and their positions, and the betting was regarded as some guage of a candidate's prospect. Games of contest, however, are the chief opportunities of gambling; indeed, sport and betting have become almost synonymous. In Dunedin, bowls are almost free from this evil; so, too, is cricket, though an attempt was made some years ago to pollute this fine game with betting. Happily, a strong letter from a gentleman in this city went far to prevent the mischief. There are no gambling hells in the city. Lounging and sauntering resorts are mostly tainted with gambling; hence the publics, Chinese lodging-houses, and some clubs have gained an unhappy notoriety. To such an extent did the evil grow in one leading club in this city—though the rules are against it—that the quieter members had to check it by a clean sweep of the committee. A few more "sweeps" like that would clear the air and relieve society in a measure from this morbid habit of excitement. Such "sweeps" would go far to lessen the evil of "consultations;" for it is the example of men in good social position—whether political, commercial, professional, or ecclesiastical—that chiefly determines the moral habits of the community. "Consultations" find their main field in the events of the racecourse, and naturally so, as the races are the chief nursery and home of the gambling spirit. Unless you take the trouble to count the matter up, as I have done, you will hardly conceive what a hold this spirit has on the community. A "consultation" is managed in this way. Some months before a race subscriptions are invited—say of a sovereign—to a £1000 sweep. Each subscriber receives a number. Certain numbers are assigned to certain horses, and the owners win prizes from £500 downwards, according to the place of their horse in the race. Some managers do so good a trade in this way that they keep a clerk and make a living out of it. One manager fills sweeps to the extent of £22,000 during the year in Dunedin alone. One enterprising agent has a monster sweep in mind for the English Derby for 1881. A twenty thousand pound sweep is advertised for the Melbourne meeting. During a recent week of six days, the Evening Star had 3 ¼ columns and the Morning Herald the same, advertising these sweeps; and that, mark, a month before the Queen's Birthday. The amounts subscribed in this way are surprising, nor are these always limited to the chances of the field. Land, stock-in-trade, and the goodwill of a hairdresser's are put into the market in this way. In two Morning Heralds for February I find advertisements on sweeps amounting to over £20,000.

Well, that was at our great meeting. But take such a quiet time as the present. During the last fortnight there were offered to the Dunedin public sweeps to the amount of £16,500—£9000 on the Queen's Handicap, for which the stakes are only £80, the rest on land and jewellery. I infer, therefore, that Dunedin is invited during the year to consultations in New Zealand amounting to about £100,000. This indication of the extent of gambling anyone can gauge for themselves.

Mechanics as a whole are not so eager at betting as clerks and shopmen. In the offices and warehouses excitement runs high before and after "a meeting." The interest during the races is keen enough. The banks close that their clerks may take lessons in the second best school of embezzlement. The warehouses close, and fling their youths into the same enticements. Shops shut, and hands are on the rush to the Forbury. Church-members who grumble at closing on fast-days are wonderfully accommodating at the races. During three clays, some 21,000 visits were paid to the racecourse, representing some 10,000 persons. This does not include the "innocent youth," who always go out to the Ocean Beach on those days—nor the thronging groups that steal a view from the sandhills. Two things conspired to make the last meeting, in spite of bad times, more popular than ever. Two novelties presented great attractions. The racecourse was under "most distinguished" patronage. Divested of state affaire, the highest subject in the Colony had come down from the Government House to be present. This drew more of the fashionable world than usual. Society was there. The Jockey Club owe much to this fact; for most people are like sheep, and there is no bell-wether at any public gathering equal to dignitaries of church or state. The would-be "aristocracy" with all their train are sure to follow. And then there was the "Totalizator." It is not quiet certain to many whether this arrangement does not come under the Police Ordinance as illegal; for it is not only a gambling machine, but the proprietors have a beneficiary interest in the proceeds. This gave some piquancy to its novel attractions. It was also well watched by the authorities, so that tricks such as have since occurred at Auckland, were guarded against. £7000 through the proprietors' hands, meant £700 as gross profit for the three days. Long odds and a small deposit made these sweeps very popular. The ladies patronized it extensively—sending their attendants down from the stand to lodge subscriptions; they even requested the machine might be placed where they could see it. There is no doubt that many indulged in this play who would never have soiled their gloves with a bet otherwise. This novelty won't last; there is no real security against swindling; and there is not half the fun in betting with a machine that there is in laying gloves with a smiling gallant who is sure to pay if he loses, and not to expect payment if he wins, for ladies as a rule are "awful welshers." It is no wonder, when ladies lay their notes on an event, and Christian deaconesses venture their crowns in a raffle, that shop-girls and factory lasses should get up their little sweeps among themselves and domestics have something on the Dunedin Cup.

In Dunedin, there are twenty-seven professional bookmakers, men that live by betting alone—more than the number of men that live and die by preaching. The horses entered were fifty; the stakes paid to winners, £3,500—or about £70 each horse—only half enough to train it. This shows that as races are at present conducted, the owners are not likely to clear expenses unless they make a book or are very lucky. The amount on the books of professional betters was about £20,000, in spite of the Totalizator. Adding together various items, with such deductions as seem fair, and accounting also for the numerous unregistered transactions, not less then £40,000 changed hands during the meeting. The serious aspect of which is not the amount, but that it was spent without compensatory returns for its use; and that probably £30,000 would be floating about useless for weeks and months. Other places, Christchurch especially, are worse for betting than Dunedin. Taking the whole country through, it is a low estimate to say that quarter of a million is annually spent on this sport—equal to one penny in the pound on our wool-clip.

I have gone into this summary of particulars, because few realise beyond a guess, the extent and distribution of this practice, and you ought to know that it is no light matter with which we have to deal. There must be some deeply rooted tendencies common to mankind, whose uncontrolled license leads to this vast result. As opium-eating comes from the common desire of a sedative, and drunkenness from the common wish for stimulants, so gambling springs from some innate proclivities, common to the world at large.

The love of money is one root of this evil. A quick and sensible profit without work dangles its delusive promise before the gamester and lures the victim to the reckless and hot pursuit of an illusion. The youth finds plodding a dull, slow way of feathering his nest. To get £500 for £1 will more than do it; he knows where the bird is to be found; then why wait, why not venture for once? The busy man wants cash, a little outlay may bring it; he could meet his bills and put all straight; so away goes the two or ten pounds.

The love of intense excitement, which risk and various uncertain prospects afford, is the mainspring of this pernicious practice. This is manifest from the fact that men engage in it, who do not need money; and from the other fact that those who begin with small stakes grow dull and weary, then rise rapidly to graver risks until the passion rages as at a roulette table on the Continent. The fascination loses its charm when fresh zest cannot be given by larger sums, or by the equivalent of more rapid results—as in the change from a rubber at whist to an hour at "nap," or a turn at "hazards."

There is another passion—not so universal, but very powerful in some men—the love of horses. You may divide those interested in the races into the Owners, the Bookmakers, and the Public; then you may rank them with their leading motives thus:—

The Owners:—Horses, Excitement, Gain.
The Bookmakers:—Gain, Horses, Excitement.
The Public:—Excitement, Gain, Horses.

"A threefold cord is not easily broken."

Hence the main defence rests on the assertion that, since gambling is natural to man, and horse-racing is a natural pastime, it is right to support and absurd to suppress what is founded upon human instincts and British traditions. To the first it must be said, that though stimulants satisfy a natural craving, its excessive gratification is to be condemned notwithstanding, and that "the cup which cheers but not inebriates," as well as temperate drinking at meals, offers alternatives more and more prevalent than formerly. To the second, it must be said that duelling and fighting with fists were once national and strong traditions. But the meeting on the heath before breakfast and the prize-ring on the marshes have both been repressed by the strong arm of the law and the stronger arm of public opinion.

It is urged further that the breeding of horses is largely dependent on the racing studs. This may be as a fact, but it is not a necessity. It is not necessary that a horse should carry 8st. 91bs. over two miles and a distance in 3 min. 56 sec. to prove the strain of its blood and the comparative value of its points. Every- body in the ring knew Mata was the best horse; and the owners "know to an inch" as the saying is, what their horses can do before they are mounted. You do not shear stud sheep to learn their value, nor bet upon the prize oxen to keep up their breed. Why should it be necessary with horses? In fact for purposes of ordinary use, the race-horse is really over-bred; and is a bad immediate parent for the plough, the dray, the saddle, and the carriage.

"But the races help trade." A leading tradesman adduces this as a strong argument. An energetic pressman begs me not to be too hard on sweeps, for their advertisements pay so well. I cannot deny the fact that some trades are benefited for the time and at the place. But this has to be qualified by another fact that this brisk riskness is accompanied by a total cessation of trade for two to three days, and by stagnation in many departments and in other places—"there will be nothing done till after the races"—and by a diversion of a large amount of floating capital from productive to unproductive channels. Were these not so, it is possible to raise trade at too great a cost. A Maori war would quicken business in Taranaki and Wanganui, but that would not justify the Government in at once provoking hostilities.

"There is some risk in everything; life is a lottery; business is more or less a venture." This must be admitted, but the difference between these uncertainties and those of the gambler lies here:—In life and business we strive to reduce the risks, to minimize them as much as possible; in gambling, the excitement evaporates under such an elimination of risk. Over-speculation is condemned as gambling, and it is difficult to see how gambling can be defended, because it is over-speculation.

Then we are told that a quantity of money is put in circulation, and so, on the principle that business is a blessing when it distributes cash and brings people into contact with one another, the national carnival does good. This is a very specious fallacy. Let any two men sit down and amuse themselves by passing a hundred sovereigns to and fro across the table, pocketing some for a while now and then. The two men are brought together; the £100 is circulated. But except, that two idle fellows have been kept out of worse folly, there is no profitable result and no added wealth; the £100 have availed nothing either to produce, to construct, or to distribute articles.

"But they are amused." Truly. "And much more are people amused with betting on races." That is true. "And the amusement does no harm to anybody—it is innocent—and it is only objected to by straight-laced parsons and a few prudish saints." Well, I wish you were all saints and parsons for a little while, and I think in the fierce light the cross throws upon the race-course, in the pitiful and practical humanity of the gospel, in the noble self-restraint of moderation, and in the richer pleasures of elated piety and calm hope—you would not think our shrinking prudish nor our objections straight-laced.

We have taken up the defence at one point after another; we have driven the defenders into their last and their most honest refuge—of amusement. And we put here the old question: "Is the game worth the candle?" Ought amusement to be purchased at the cost—economical, industrial, and moral—expended on the races?

The expenditure in money alone on the last meeting must have been at least £40,000. Much of this large sum was practically locked up for a month without interest. You laugh at the old woman who kept her 100 sovereigns in a stocking foot for five and twenty years. You do the same when you scatter £30,000 broadcast without use for a single month. It does not make it less foolish, that 10,000 have clubbed together for the purpose. Young folk suffer most. Of impressible and sensitive nature, the excitement is both more attractive and more intense. Young folk are not so wise as old and practised gamesters. When they bet on a horse they are nearly sure to lose; and, if they do get inside the sacred (?) precincts of the ring, they are nearly sure to be fleeced. Should they lose, they rarely have nerve enough to resist another chance: should they "make a haul" they are intoxicated with their gains and play higher stakes.

Character deteriorates on the racecourse. The close familiarity with money male without effort makes youth fret at the steady work of other days. They catch the feverish delusion that a fortune lies quicker and richer before them with a betting book than with a ledger. The habit of industry is broken, and the sterling elements of character grow limp. What is got in this way soon vanishes, for a fool and his money are soon parted. Twelve months ago a man left the races worth £7000. He is now an insolvent. Twenty-five years ago my ablest, pupil was always trusting to his good luck to get through his work. The same habit grew upon him when he went into the city. At lunch he gambled with dominoes. In a few years he was in trouble, and fled secretly with his wife, leaving his only child with the servants. He had been a loyal, true-hearted fellow. Gambling hardened his heart against his own child, and drove him across the seas.

Money is got in three ways—By work, by inheritance, by gambling. Got by work, it is generally kept and well used. Got by inheritance, it is mostly prepared for by special and expectant training; otherwise it may be kept, but will be ill-used. Got by gambling, it is rarely kept and badly spent. They put it into a bag with holes.

The morals of these carnivals must in all fairness be regarded from two different points of view. Much of the evil of the races comes from the drawing together of large numbers under conditions of excitement. There is far less drinking on the course than there used to be. There is less drunkenness at night. Though, of course, where the carcase is, the vultures will swoop down. Men and women of loose habits will hang on the skirts of the crowd and infect others with their own habitual corruption. It is doubtful whether this concentration of wickedness upon the city in one week does not work more of mischief than all the amusement of the season gives of recreation. For my part, I hold this as a sufficient reason why leaders of society—men of position, professing Christians and honourable ladies—should not only absent themselves from the races, but discountenance all the sweeps, whether consultations or charity raffles, with every form of gambling that may lead our sons and daughters into the influence and neighborhood of all the rascaldom and mystery of iniquity in the Province. "Be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing." If you Christian men are right down earnest as to the suppressing of consultation sweeps, you must not only press the matter on the city members—creating at the same time a popular opinion—but you must forthwith abolish the raffle at Church and charity bazaars. "Judgment must begin at the house of God."

A further reason for this abstinence, effort, and abolition, is to be found in the fact that the inner circle of the ring is as dishonest by day as the outer fringe of the course is dissipated by night. I know that my argument breaks down on some lines when applied to the ring. The owners and bookmakers do work for their gains. But there is often the working of iniquity with both hands earnestly in that inner circle.

Suppose all horses but one are scratched at the last moment because that one runs to win; would that be fair-or-foul play to the betting community?

Suppose an owner negociates with a bookmaker who stands to win, and because he is refused scratches his horse; would that make fine English sport?

Suppose the best horse runs under the colours of an owner who does not own a hair of his tail; and suppose orders are given for the second best to win; and suppose the jockey brings home the first best to the winning post because it suits his book; is that treble deception on the square?

I have no right to affirm that these suppositions are more than suppositions, but I confidently appeal to any men who have had the ill fortune to be behind the scenes whether such like things have not occurred upon New Zealand courses—and occurred in spite of all the watch fulness of the most honourable jockey clubs.

Should not such stories as these caution you young men against betting, even on the most reliable outside information. You are likely to lose anyhow; you are certain to lose amid such trickery.

Will the running of horses to win cleanse the race-course of these evils? It is not by such a brooklet our Hercules will cleanse this Augean stable. Will you Christian men—men to whom it has been said, "Let him that nameth the Lord depart from evil"—will you be able, think you, to turn the waters that flow softly in the Valley of Kedron on the fires and worms of the valley of Gehenna, by entering that belt of excitement, whose centre by day is rascality and whose fringe by night is dissipation? Will you be able to amend this kind of thing—will you not rather promote it—by taking your son, with the down upon his lip, and your daughter, with the blush of modesty on her cheeks, to the very verge and edge of it all? I can understand the gentlemen who boldly defend gambling and the racecourse, and credit them with some sturdiness of character, though I deem them utterly and altogether wrong in their opinions, and harmful in their practices. But who can comprehend the straightforwardness of Christian communicants, who dare not and cannot defend the practice, who know the evils and shudder at them, and who yet will take a sweep ticket to please a friend and go to a racecourse to please themselves? Depend upon it, the reform of racing is not to be done by sharing in it. Reform is not to be done by being silent, either; and I, for one, will not be. Slavery could not have been abolished in the South by the North sharing in such service; it was the occult participation of the North that delayed the day of emancipation. Quakers and Baptists have aimed at religious liberty. Sirs, they never would have gained it had they not stood aloof from a political Church; and you will never reform the ring and the races, nor abolish betting and sweeps, by a seat in the grand stand and a ticket in the totalisator. No, sirs, it is only when you will abide so firm to your conviction that society would be better without gambling as to act upon it; it is only when you will keep aloof from these things—rebuke them with words and discountenance them by deeds—that public opinion can be formed against them and made effective, too. The stronghold of this vice is its respectability. It is patronised by authorities, it is fostered by thoughtless ladies, it is countenanced by the members of our Christian Churches. The moral tone of English family life was lowered by "the first gentleman in Europe" and the guilty connivance of the clergy. It has been raised by the example of Albert the Good and our Sovereign Lady the Queen; by the outspoken remonstrance of the pulpit and the press; by the silent example of the Churches. It is the loyal subjects of the Great King with whom lie the chief responsibility and the honour of the first and last move. Let Christian men warn, protest, and agitate with plain talks and pure deeds; and moved by the loftiest principles, they can gain the bulk of the community to their side. As in olden times they drove the gladiators from Rome, the Churches shall change the fashion of our day—shall displace the swindling practices of the turf with the habits of industrious labour, and turn our eager-hearted youth from the dissipations of gambling to the glad and homely games that ennoble character, strengthen piety, and beautify the life. The chief aim of this Plain Talk has not been to proclaim a gospel on which I could invite men to a higher life, but to depict a social sore in such a way as to warn them from the gates of a living death. Our meditation has been among the tombs of buried reputations. Two principles, however, come before us in this melancholy review. The one, that there is much incertitude in life; we cannot detect and combine all the causes of things; we must balance one probability against another, and act on the overweight of evidence. The other principle, that men in their best years neither can nor will be content with "humdrum," the dull routine and sluggish current of the daily round. Weary and burdened with earth's lot, men rush hither and thither for relief. In vain; for the forced excitement leaves them more weary and more burdened, and with a craving more insatiable than ever. Why this discontent, this ceaseless quest for hours into which we may condense months of pent-up energy? Is it not because our common life is struck in too low a key and to a poor accompaniment that we seek a remedy in the shrill shriekings of a bootless pleasure? Is it not that our thoughts are cribbed, cabined, and confined, and must find vent somewhere. Is it not that we have wandered somehow from the light, and, groping and cowering in the darkness, make frantic efforts now and then to reach what we have lost? Have we not lost ourselves, and is it not more life and fuller that we want— more that it may be fuller? Change all this, and we should not hanker after evil to satisfy an instinct that is good. And all this can be changed. For the gift of God is life eternal, and this life is in His-Son, who is come to seek and to save that which is lost. Now eternal means long, but when allied with life it means also rich, deep, and full. There is solemnity and power in thoughts of things unseen and eternal; with these about our minds, and lowly love within our hearts, we can be contented with the simplest and most sober lot, and our life accord with the harmonies of heaven. The great attraction of gambling is the opportunity it offers for a passing intensity of life. There is, however, another opportunity—free from the perils of gambling—in the offers of the Gospel. Christianity draws out all the energies of a man—self ward, neighbour-ward, and God ward. This subdued and quiet, this controlled and lasting intensity, is to be caught from Christ—from Him alone. "Learn of Me, and ye shall find rest unto your souls." "I am come that they might have life, and have it more abundantly."