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"IN THE MATTER OF BETTING" Under the above heading a writer in The Englishman, a weekly published in the interests of labor and trade and the protection of land, has an eminently sensible article on the question of betting. "Melting," he says, "is simply a practical and businesslike manifestation of the gambling spirit. The gambling spirit is the recognition of the law of chance. It is more than thai it is the invocation of the law of chance. The obvious abuses need no enlargement al my hands. The law of chance is an uncertainty, and, applied In exaggerated doses, fatal. 1 may say the same of all the many bottles of medicine that 1 have had to take wthout the slightest chance of getting a farthing of the money back, "Uirtlt has a great deal to do with gambling. One crowd gambles because it has been born into the means of doing so J another because it sees in the accident of meaner birth just so much chance. However it may be, the gambling spirit, aud its expression in betting, has always existed and, In the nature of things, always will exist. "Clearly there Is more in this matter of belting than appears at first sight. 1, for my part, would like to see the little business cleared up and bereft of some of the externals that opponents of wagering in any shape wrap round the subject and are mostly cant, or, at all events, looks like It Far be It from mo to impugn any objectors honesty of pur-poso; but a good many people indulge in cant quite innocently; they were brought up to it. They dont know that they are canting humbugs in appearance, if not in reality; and nowadays, of course, appearance is every tiling. How many people are there who, before voicing nn opinion, ask themselves whether they are not speaking by way of prejudice or saying something that might Aery easily bo construed into mere cant of the" best? 1 hold no brief for belling -quite the reverse It owes me money. Dut 1 do think that a subject of the kind should be approached with a calm, judicial mind, and discussed, not as a canker. Avhich 11 is not, but as a pursuit that Is liable to abuse. "Curiously enough, the legislature has made nn enactment which tends most of all to render belting dangerous. There must be no passing of money Avhen the bcl is made, or words to that effect. The biggest mistake in the Avorld. I should propose that there be no betting of any kind without lite absolute deposit of the entire sum staked. When it comes to paying out, the actual meaning of betting is clearly understood by nil parties, and I do not think that anyone Avill deny to twentieth century men the right to do that which they clearly realize and under-Bland. It is n huge subject and will not spoil for a little more light to be cast upon it." London Sporting L.ife.
