filled an ocean swamping the land. The twenty or so bookmakers of the beginning of the century grew into an army of twenty thousand. Many made fortunes; nearly all made a living. Those who confined their operations to the race-courses might be said to do less harm than those who offered facilities away from the course, only that they usually acted in relation to these latter as the wholesale dealer does for the retailer. One of these retail men who was not given to boasting (_Chambers’s Journal_, 1898) admitted that his business had a turnover of £250,000. It must be remembered that the individuals in the streets are merely the journeymen of well-to-do bookmakers. During last year, amongst the many thousands of fines for the offence, evidence was given—and there are scores of similar cases—that a lad of 16 was one of several servants of a master bookmaker, who mapped out the district amongst his subordinates. From unofficial but perfectly reliable sources, hundreds of items of information quite as striking as the above could be given, but they are unnecessary in view of the statements of officials and others made before the Select Committee of the House of Lords (1901-2). Briefly summarised, the evidence showed that the practice of betting had grown to such an extent amongst the working classes that it was quite commonly carried on in factories and workshops by agents of the bookmakers, and outside of them by the street betting men. In speaking of the former method, one of many testimonies was given by the Lord Provost of Glasgow, who said that betting was carried on to an enormous extent in the great workshops there; while an idea of the latter can be obtained from Police Superintendent Shannon’s statement that in Lambeth alone 441 persons had been proceeded against in the previous year, the fines amounting to £2000. The evidence proved also that it was not confined to men, but had spread to women and children; that it caused the neglect of wives and children, disregard for parents, and carelessness and indifference in their occupations, frequently resulting in embezzlement from their employers; that this professional betting was largely responsible for corrupting the police, for turning athletic sports into a trade, and for a general neglect of duty amongst those who indulged in it; that all efforts to cope with it under the existing law had failed to restrict it to any extent, including those of the trade unions, some of which exclude from official positions any one known to be given to betting. Excepting those witnesses who in some way, direct or indirect, were interested in the professional betting business, there was a volume of convincing testimony as to its baneful effects. A former prison chaplain, through whose hands in ten years a hundred thousand persons had passed, said that in one jail a whole wing had been set aside for prisoners in connection with betting, which was now increasing more than ever.