N. _Gambling in the Stock, Produce, and other Markets_ It may be said that there is positively no effective legislation in existence, if an exception be made of the Bank Act 1867, 30 Vict. c. 29, which provides for contracts identifying the shares of banks bought and sold. However thoroughly we may be convinced that much of the business in the above marts is to a great extent a matter of gaming, it is impossible to ignore the fact that there is a large amount of legitimate business transacted in them, and that the commercial world could hardly exist without them. There is, moreover, the great difficulty of drawing a line between the commerce and the gambling. Of course the havoc and ruin arising are known to all. The Stock Exchange is probably responsible for as much loss and misery as even the Turf, and the suffering caused in Lancashire by the recent cotton gambling is but one instance, and that as it were a by-product, of the extravagant transactions of the produce exchanges. Pages might be filled with instances, such as the sale on a single occasion of two millions of a well-known railway’s stock, only £500 of it being a genuine investment. Where a commercial element is inherent, and of shifting and unascertainable proportions, difficulty has hitherto been found in framing laws against gambling which would not hamper legitimate enterprise; and consequently, in our country, by leaving things alone, the gambler has been actually encouraged by allowing him to go scot free of the moderate _pro rata_ dues exacted from the investor. In this particular the present laws are most unhappily defective, and when we come to deal with remedies on a later page suggestions will be made upon the subject. BETTING