The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1910-04-30 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

VERY ALARMING EXTENT.  It had infected those classes upon whom it could inflict the greatest harm. There was, according to the Report of the Royal Commissioners held in 1902, lase gambling in large sums by the well-to-do owners of horses to-day than in the past, but this decrease had been more than compensated for by the practice di betting amongst working men. It was estimated a few years ago by that eminent statistician, who had just passed away--Bir Robert Giffen—that £5,000,000 per annum went into the pockets of the bookmakers. The estimate was. supto err on the side of moderation. supposed were over 20,000 profesional bookmakers in England; many of these, it must be remembered, had piled up fortunes as a result of their ill-gotten gains. One bookmaker stated in an article which he contributed to one of our monthly magazines that his business had a turnover of .050.000; another, that he had often made £5,000 in one day. In Lambeth elone in on. year no fewer than 451 persons were pre. (Seeded against at the Police Court, and Ines to the amount of .22,000 were imposed, It was one of the most menacing features rof the gambling evil that it was lot con.  fined to men; women and even children were being contaminated. Bookmakers. and racing tipsters even, were not always men. Women often took up the work, and carried on a gambling business on a large scale. One almost shuddered to think of the effect that this must have on the characters of women involved. It was stated in evidence given before the Royal Commissioners that men going their rounds to collect periodical phyments for articles sold, frequently collected at the same time money to be put on horses. Indeed, it would seem that HOUSE TO HOUSE GASPLINO was rapidly on the increase. The itinerant bookmakers, SO one of the witnesses declared, went from house to house to get tile women, in the absence of their husbands to bet. In some icases ,he (the preacher) had known the money had been. so short that the mother had gone and taken some things out of the house and pie-ned them in order to get money to het with. Boys and girls, too, were often made use of by parents and others in betting transactions, and frequently put their own toppers on horses, or gambled in other ways. An investigation was carried out in York; n working class cottage was carefully watched for 14 hours, spread over five days. During that time, out of over 500 persons who entered for the purpose of making bets, over WO, i.e.. over 1-sth were 'boys and girls. Ire thought it was quite clear that gaintiling was becoming more and more a ;menace to the home and life of our country. England might be able to di,pense with many of her possessions today without impairing her greatness. England could not dispense with the purity of home-life. All through society in England to-day they had this evil working its menacing work. in the. majority of the great business houses each race meeting produced !ft sweepstake or some similar gambling arlreugement. In every town there was a • horde of professional bookmakers. lo , some form or other there was hardly an. !aspect of aational life that is not touched, !and to some extent tainted by it. The preacher next glanced at the TIM' tion of the " toll" that gambling exacted from its victims in the form of crime committed in consequence of it. poverty brought ' on, and suicide resorted to as a way out of the disasters brought on. There were, , however, he said. other results, which, though they were less glaring, might be in 1 the long run even more dangerous to the !nation. There was no doubt that gambling I did more to corrupt and to  DISiCREDIT