Gambling; Great Britain -- Social life and customs
Lord Provost CHISHOLM, of Glasgow, gave evidence with the knowledge and
sanction of the Corporation. Betting had increased all round, especially
street betting with the industrial classes. He spoke both from personal
knowledge and the complaints made to him by citizens. Betting was carried
on to a large extent in factories and workshops, the bookmakers sometimes
having their own agents employed in them. He would make the penalties
more severe, and would seize all money found on bookmakers and imprison
them. He believed public opinion would support such measures. He was
opposed to licensing bookmakers. Women were in the habit of betting with
bookmakers like men.
CHIEF CONSTABLE OF GLASGOW: He agreed with the evidence of the previous
witness. Licensing would only encourage the bookmakers. They ought to be
imprisoned. There was very great risk of the police being tampered with
by bookmakers. Some had already been bribed. Many Glasgow bookmakers did
business by telegram and letter. The Post Office had been complained to,
but could do nothing.
Mr. BRYAN THOMAS, Hon. Sec. of a Labour Organisation, said he had forty
years’ experience among the working men of East London. He would do away
with street betting entirely. He would treat the bookmakers as rogues,
and give them three months’ hard labour.
Rt. Hon. JAS. LOWTHER, M.P., a member of the Jockey Club for twenty-five
years, did not think that large bets had increased of late years, but
betting was more widely diffused, and not confined to sporting circles.
He considered that there had been a great increase of betting all round.
He could not suggest any way of reducing the misery caused by it. He saw
difficulties in the way of licensing bookmakers.
Mr. W. B. WOODGATE, the well-known aquatic authority, would license
bookmakers, and would fine any of them practising without a licence £500
or six months’ hard labour. The witness related a case of police bribing
which he had brought before the authorities at Scotland Yard, but it
ended in nothing owing to their careless handling of it.
Mr. EDWARD HULTON,[15] jun., of the Manchester _Sporting Chronicle_, was
against the prohibiting the publication of the odds, and in favour of
licensing bookmakers.
Mr. J. BAIN, formerly a member of Tattersall’s Club, also of the
Victoria, Beaufort, and Albert Clubs, gave evidence as to the poisoning
of race-horses for the purposes of the betting market, and how leading
bookmakers were laying heavily at the club against the poisoned horses
before the general public knew of what had been done. He also showed that
many of the prices quoted in the newspapers were mere bogus quotations to
induce the outside public to bet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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