“ Nothing is easier than to heap abuse upon the Stock Exchange and to place to its debit every crime of which the gambler can be guilty. And all the abuse would have a sediment of truth beneath it, for infinite are the evils that have grown up and spread their roots far and wide through all strata of modern society since the day when dealing in stocks and shares first became a passion or a habit. ”

“ How many of them have found their way to gaol through betting, and how many have sought self-destruction?
Such must be the occasional thoughts of all old bookmakers. And for why? Because there is not one of us, past and present, who has not over and over again obtained our money by questionable means, even if our inclination was not to do so. We have been, and are compelled—yes, compelled!—to participate in trickery and deceit to the detriment of the backer; and so crops up the thought that the backers’ money in many instances is not obtained honourably. These facts make one feel uneasy. ”

“ Men will not tolerate a uniform drudgery, they will not live in a world which is nothing but a featureless expanse. And this intellectual appetite for risk, for projecting one’s self on to the silent stream of fate upon which the barque of life mysteriously floats, must be satisfied either legitimately or illegitimately, either in accordance with sound morals or in the teeth of sound morals. The latter will be the case if we condemn, as we do now, large sections of our population to conditions of life from which their intellectual nature can get no satisfaction. ”

“ Instead of running the gauntlet of an angry mob on the race-course, he does his swindling more sedately in an office, where he is out of the reach of his victims. Calling himself a commission agent or a Turf accountant, he advertises in the Press or sends out circulars inviting backers to open accounts with him. When they lose he takes their money; when they win he refuses to pay up. I cannot say that I have any sympathy for the greenhorns who are plundered by these bandits of the Turf. There are plenty of bookmakers who carry on their business in a perfectly honest and straightforward manner. ”

“ But these baneful institutions and the gambling clubs are fed by the life-blood of the people, whose hard-earned money flows by the thousand retail conduits of street and factory bookmakers to these gambling marts and clearing houses. It is not only where working men and women gather in numbers, but in the home, amongst domestic servants of both sexes, in the shop, the office, on the journey, in educational establishments, even in the Sunday school and the juvenile social club and class, that betting is discovered. ”

“ Is it really morose to object to public gatherings which their own promoters declare to be dangerous for all decent folk? Every one knows that horse-racing is carried on mainly for the delight and profit of fools, ruffians, and thieves. That intelligent men allow themselves to take part in the affair, and defend their conduct by declaring that their presence “maintains the character of a sport [35] essentially noble,” merely shows that intelligence can easily enough divest itself of sense and decency. ”

“ When the victim suffers loss—gets caught by the market, as he would put it—he doubtless suffers more or less acute mental agony according to his character, the traditions of honourable conduct he may possess, or the extent of his risk. Then his mood becomes that of the old rhyme: “When the devil was sick, the devil a monk would be.” Vows are registered never more to be caught in this snare; the mind is prey to remorse, and virtue is honoured. But let the danger pass, the threatened loss become a profit, and all is forgotten when next temptation comes. ”

“ Perhaps no other human interest, not based on purely physical craving, arouses so absorbing a passion: alcoholism itself scarcely asserts a stronger dominion over its devotees.
So widespread has been the zest for gambling among whole races as widely different in character and environment as the British, the Zulu, the Chinese, that we are almost driven to seek some physiological root for the passion. To give an added weight of interest to chance by attaching to it a transfer of property seems to imply a love of hazard as a permanent feature in humanity. ”

“ Betting and the race meetings collect together huge assemblies of the lowest and vilest scoundrels on earth—thieves, cheats, ruffians, highwaymen, vagabonds, returned convicts, castaways, ne’er-do-wells, welshers, card-sharpers, tricksters, foul-mouthed quadrupeds, villains, and the worst form of humanity that it is possible to get together—many of them superbly clothed and well dressed—all, all, in some way or other preying upon the thousands upon thousands of the fools of backers in one way or another. ”

“ Very many of these beloved sportsmen are men who have made money in trade or business—they are either in business still or are retired—who, having saved a competency to live upon, somehow or other find their way, one after the other, on to the race-course; they nearly always come into Tattersall’s at the different meetings; they go the round of them, and travel gaily from place to place; they get charmed with the free and open life and excitement. They decide, as a rule, firstly, to risk so many hundreds, but when it is gone they generally manage to find more money. ”

“ It does not so manifestly sin against the canons of justice as do other bad modes of transfer,—theft, fraud, sweating,—for every one is said to have an equal chance; but it inflicts a graver damage on the intellect. Based as it is on an organised rejection of all reason as a factor, it removes its devotees into a positive atmosphere of miracles, and generates an emotional excitement that inhibits those checks which reason more or less contrives to place upon emotional extravagances. The essence of gambling consists in an abandonment of reason, an inhibition of the factors of human control. ”

“ I can only indicate the skeleton of such a programme, and I do so, not so much to urge my readers to accept it, as to emphasise that the attack upon the gambling habit can be successful only if it is positive and constructive, and not merely negative and prohibitory.
When we try to get to the root of our social vices of to-day we ultimately find ourselves contemplating the sad effects of the steady stream of population away from the green meadows on to the grey pavements. Overcrowding in the towns and dilapidation in the villages are the result. ”

“ There is no home problem where there is true religion, and there is no power which keeps more alive the best qualities of human kind. Without it there can be neither that affection nor respect which makes it possible for the children of the home to remain attached to it, and every child induced by the example at home to take up the practice of betting is a disintegrating factor in that happiness which alone can bring stability and respect to character. ”

“ Is the disease thus indicated incurable—a disease whose course is invariable, whose end is profit, wealth perhaps, to one in a quarter of a million among the players, and to all the others various gradations of loss, from a few pounds disbursed in exchange for wisdom-fraught experience to complete ruin and social degradation? Yes, I believe it to be incurable, especially in a society constructed with such all-pervading artificiality as ours. One’s first impulse is to cast unmitigated censure upon the gambler ”

“ It is possible to conceive a state governed by a spirit of mutual help and wholesome brotherliness in citizenship, wherein all would have been united according to their means to build these new iron highways for the good of the whole community, not for private gain; but it is vanity to think thoughts like these, men being what they are. The one effective force that could be relied on to attract the necessary capital to any enterprise is cupidity in one degree or another, the desire for individual profit. ”