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BETTING AND GAMBLING
BETTING & GAMBLING
A NATIONAL EVIL
EDITED BY
B. SEEBOHM ROWNTREE
AUTHOR OF ‘POVERTY’
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1905
All rights reserved
TO THE
MEMBERS OF THE COMMITTEE
OF
THE YORK ANTI-GAMBLING LEAGUE
AT WHOSE SUGGESTION
THIS WORK WAS UNDERTAKEN
PREFACE
Until comparatively recent years, betting andgambling were largely confined in this countryto the wealthy few. Now, however, the practicehas spread so widely among all classes of thecommunity that those who know the facts namegambling and drinking as national evils of almostequal magnitude.
There is no doubt that the social conscience isas yet only very partially awakened to the widespreadcharacter of the gambling evil and to itsgrievous consequences. Like a cancer, the evilthing has spread its poisonous roots throughoutthe length and breadth of the land, carrying withthem, where they strike, misery, poverty, weakenedcharacter, and crime.
Nor is the practice any longer spontaneous. Itis encouraged and organised by an army of socialparasites in the shape of bookmakers and theirtouts; these men or women (for the “profession”is not confined to men) pursue their calling in[viii]every town of Britain—indeed, there are probablybut few villages or large workshops which are freefrom them. In many places, indeed, they regularlycall for “orders,” the itinerant packman or agentcombining this with his recognised business. Evenlittle children have been known to bet their slatepencils in the playgrounds of our State schools,while women and girls in all ranks of society nolonger regard the practice as unwomanly.
And yet, in spite of the acknowledged magnitudeof the evil, there are, with a very few notableexceptions, no organised efforts to check it. Theapparent apathy of the nation to the extraordinaryspread of this mischief in its midst is