Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1890-06-14 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

GAMBLING AND BETTING.  ADDRESS BY A MIDDLESBROUGH  CLERGYMAN.  I On Sunday the Reim I. P. Shearer discoursed at ! the Newport-road Baptist Church, Middlesbrough, on the evils of gambling and betting, basing his discourse on I. Timothy vi., 10, "The love of money is the root of all evil." The root of gambling and betting was, he said, the love of money for its own sake; a desire to get rich without trouble. He would not enter into discussion on an article on the subject which recently appeared in a local paper. A profoundly illogical and clownish way of dealing with the subject was that article. He did not want to enter into a discussion as to the distinction between gambling on horses and gambling with pig iron, because the ambassador of Christ had nothing to do with that. It was not with the object of the gambling that the Christian had any quarrel: it was with the principle of gambling from beginning to end. They brushed aside all questions about horses and iron—whether the rich man ought to gamble, or the poor man ought not to gamble—they brushed these aside, and simply took gambling by the throat, and held it up to the test of righteousness; the verdict being that the pursuit was a ruinous one, and that man could not serve it and Almighty God at the same time. After referring to the evil effect of speculation on trade, he proceeded to observe that a very searching and able article appeared in the North-Eastern Weekly Gazette, which revealed a very sad state of things in Middlesbrough, and he had had that article corroborated by other evidence. There was a place called The Bank," where more money was turned over in the course of gambling than any other tradesman in Middlesbrough turned over in his legitimate business. There they would find from twenty to thirty professional bookmakers, and there they would find men, women, and boys all gambling. I There would be found the miniature horse race, I the three-dice game, and other inducements to ! risk money for the sake of making more. It was ' shameful that a thing like this was not put down, ! and the scoundrels keeping it up not whipped out of the town. After speaking of the great hold which gambling had taken upon the English nation and the variety of forms in which it was exhibited, he said the daily Press alone furnished tremendous evidence of the grip which this vice had obtained upon social ife. The Press, which was such an enormous power for good or evil, had become—he would not say wittingly—but unwittingly the general vehicle for the spread of this dire and terrible evil. The fact was, a Press with a conscience, with a moral I conscience responsible entirely to Almighty God, was doomed in Christian England. ; He asserted that the Press did a great deal more than it needed in the direction of supplying sporting news. The rev, gentleman then proceeded to speak of the inequality of the laws against betting , and gambling, the gutter boys being taken up fur, playing at pitch and toss when members of Par-! liament, who had suspended their sitting to go down! to Epsom, were let alone. He described the mischief wrought by the penny bookmaker, and slid! within the last ten years 2,000 people had committed suicide all through the abominable vice of betting. In conclusion, he urged employers to keep a strict watch on their employees; to warn them if they saw them giving way to gambling, and to dismiss them if they persisted. He also ' asked every one of his hearers to UM his or her influence against the prevalent mania—The address was listened to by a large auditory.