THE SPIRIT OF GAMBLING

UPON the proposed taxation of betting there is a well-marked difference of opinion in the Christian Churches. The Church of Rome has never condemned betting in itself as a sin, although she fully acknowledges that betting, if it is carried beyond a legitimate point, becomes sinful. The Nonconformist Churches in England, or the ministers of those Churches, are generally opposed not only to all betting, even in its least extravagant forms, but also and still more to such public recognition of betting as would in their opinion be granted by the State, if the State were to impose a tax upon betting. The Church of England stands, I think, midway between these Churches; for it is probable that a majority of lay Churchmen, but not a majority of clergymen, would regard a tax upon betting as legitimate, if it were held to be both practicable and remunerative. It may be well to await the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons upon the proposed tax; for the Committee have heard the full evidence on both sides, and they must be the best judges of the conclusion which naturally arises from the evidence.

But the ultimate question between the Churches is whether betting is, like sexual immorality, sinful in itself and therefore always and everywhere sinful, whoever may be guilty of it; or is like the drinking of wine or beer, which is held, except by a few fanatics of temperance, to be sinful not in itself, but only in its excess, when it amounts or approximates to intoxication. For if a habit, however dangerous it may be in its possible consequences, is not inherently immoral, then the persons who promote it or practise it may fairly be taxed, as the Liquor Trade is taxed. But if it is inherently immoral, like the keeping of a house of ill-fame, then the State can make no terms with it and can derive no revenue from it, but must seek to abolish it or, if abolition is impossible, to repress it. Taxation is not usually regarded as an encouragement to industry; for the Trade would be only too thankful to be relieved of the heavy taxation, amounting to 190,000,000l., now annually extorted from it, and experience has shown in the case of drinking, under the Acts of 1830 and 1834, that the licensing system tends to diminish and not to

increase the prevalence of a dangerous habit as it existed under conditions which had practically allowed the unlicensed and unlimited sale of alcoholic drinks. It is a mistake in public morals to multiply sins; for the effect of imagining unreal sins is to impair the force of the protest which Christians are bound to make against such sins as are indisputably real, and to alienate the great body of moderate practical opinion, without which it is impossible to effect reforms in a democratic society. The majority of civilised States have already come to feel that there is no harm, but rather good, in trying to control betting by national regulations; and the majority of Christian citizens have never seen that it is wrong to accept the benefit of an appreciation in the value of stocks and shares, or to play cards for insignificant points, or to hazard a shilling upon the daily run of a ship at sea. But whether the State does or does not recognise such a festival as the Derby Day now, and whether it would or would not recognise it if it were to tax the gambling fraternity on Derby Day, the two schools of thought in the Church of England or elsewhere are agreed in holding that the gambling temper is morally undesirable. To accumulate figures which demonstrate the amount and the evil of betting, and to insinuate that the advocates or supporters of a tax upon betting ought logically to approve a tax upon brothels, is to suggest unfairly that the advocates of a tax upon betting are in some manner or degree sympathisers with the habit of betting itself. But the object of my article is to show, if indeed it is necessary to show, how gravely prejudicial is the habit of betting or gambling to the welfare of the national life.

It is not necessary, perhaps, to quote the judgments of eminent social observers and reformers. But Dr. Johnson once said to Boswell, Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man, but I call him an unsocial man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.' Washington, in a circular letter which he issued to his generals in 1777, said, ' Gaming of every kind is expressly forbidden, as being the foundation of evil and the cause of many a brave officer's ruin.' Sir E. W. Hamilton relates how Mr. Gladstone once said to him that he regarded gambling as nothing short of damnable. . . . He said that one was as much accountable to God for the expenditure of one's money as for the use of one's talents. But how could this be so, he would say, when one's money disappeared of its own accord?' Yet the most striking condemnation of gambling, not only in itself, but in the source from which it comes, is, I think, contained in Cobbett's First Letter of Advice to Young Men: I can truly say I never in my whole life knew a man fond of gaming who was not in some way or other a person unworthy of confidence.' When a young man of fashion informed

the late Lord Grimthorpe that he was going on the turf, he replied, You had better go under it.' Of gambling in all its forms the Spanish proverb is supremely true, 'The best cast at dice is not to play at all.' Two other testimonies it may be permissible to quote. One is that of Lord Chesterfield, whose will contained the following clause :

In case my godson Philip Stanhope shall at any time hereafter keep or be concerned in the keeping of any racehorses or pack of hounds, or reside one night at Newmarket, that famous seminary of iniquity and ill manners, during the course of the races there, or shall resort to the said races, or shall lose in any one day at any game or bet whatsoever the sum of 500l., then in any of the cases aforesaid it is my express will that he, my godson, should forfeit and pay out of my estate the sum of 5000l. to and for the use of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.

The other testimony is that of the tipster who, under the pseudonym of 'Captain Coe,' was concerned for so many years in recommending 'dead certs.,' as they are called, to ignorant persons of both sexes who wanted to have what is known as a 'flutter' upon a horse-race. 'Captain Coe,' who was in private life Mr. Edward Card Mitchell, died on January 22, 1914; and by his will, as it appears in The Times of March 23 in that year, he left to his son, Walter Victor Mitchell, his copyright in his book The Coroner's Understudy and' the sole right to use the name of " Captain Coe on condition, as the Captain expressed himself, ' of his paying my trustees the sum of 10l. and entering into a covenant with them that he will never gamble nor give up his regular Stock Exchange work in favour of it.' It may be a difficult problem to decide at what point gambling or illegitimate gambling begins; nor is there any easily ascertainable reason why gambling, or at least betting, should have come to be so much more closely associated with some sports than with others. Sport itself has been during many ages a characteristic of English life. How deeply it has entered into the mind or heart of the English-speaking race may be judged by such common phrases as to play the game,' to 'play with a straight bat,' or to do or not to do what deserved to be called 'cricket,' or to cultivate a sporting temper or a sportsmanlike spirit, phrases which all tend to indicate that sport was not only a regular, but a highly honourable, element in the life of Englishmen, who believed that they above other nations, and especially above the German nation, understood and appreciated, as indeed they habitually observed, the rules of fair play. But if some sports, such as cricket, have been generally kept clear of the pecuniary interest which takes the form of betting, and therefore of publishing betting odds upon them, other sports have been increasingly tainted by the love of money. There is, it is true, a certain amount of speculation upon the annual boat-race between the

Universities of Oxford and Cambridge; but such speculation has not, I think, generally infected regattas, whether at Cowes or at Henley or elsewhere. It is the turf that is the main centre or occasion of betting and gambling; and the consequent demoralisation of the turf is as unfortunate in the eyes of all good citizens as it is notorious. It is apt to be taken for granted that horseracing cannot flourish without betting. But in the ancient Greek world horse-racing, in the form of chariot-racing, was a sport of such distinction as has not been accorded to the turf in England and has scarcely been accorded to the bull-ring in Spain Yet not only was the Greek chronology reckoned by Olympiads; but the victors in the Olympian games were heroes so universally admired that Thucydides, the gravest of historians, could not express the popularity of the victorious Brasidas in any better or other way than by saying that it was like the popularity of an Olympian victor. The horse is the noblest of animals. It has given its name to cavalry and chivalry. Horse-racing is said to be the sport of kings. Is it altogether impossible that the turf should be, at least in some degree, cleared of the bookmakers, touts and welshers whose dresses and voices are in themselves enough to set the stamp of vulgarity, if not of impropriety, upon their profession?

But the scandal of the turf has lately extended to the football field. It has vitiated Association football far more rapidly and seriously than Rugby football. Why one of the two great games of football should lend itself so much more easily than the other to the contamination of betting and gambling is a question not perhaps easily answered. Association football makes its appeal to the interest of a larger populace; it is therefore more readily exposed to the evils of professionalism. Forty years or more ago, when I used to play Association football as a member of the Old Etonian football team, the elevens were generally elevens of amateurs. It happened seldom, if ever, that football was treated by the players as a source of livelihood; they were gentlemen and they played as gentlemen; they felt by a natural instinct that a game cannot deserve the name of sport unless it is played not only according to the letter, i.e., to the rules, but according to the spirit of the game. They knew, too, that, when the love of money comes in, the love of sport goes out. No sooner did football clubs begin to regard their matches not in a sportsmanlike, but in a businesslike, manner than they conceived the idea of strengthening their teams by importing players into them. It is, I think, a reform essential to athletics, and to cricket nearly as much as to football, that the qualifications of playing for a county or a club should be more rigorously defined and enforced. Birth

1 iv. 121.

may be a legitimate qualification; so too may residence or residence during a certain length of time, if the transference of a player from one part of the country to another is effected naturally, and not for a pecuniary consideration which is given him in order that he may become a member of a certain cricket or football eleven. At present the counties and lubs are competing one against another for the best players by offering them bribes, and ever larger bribes; and not infrequently a player is reported to have qualified himself or to intend to qualify himself for representing a body with which he possesses no natural connection beyond the receipt of a salary by which he has been induced to abandon his old home. But the professionalism which induces a man to accept a bribe for playing in a particular team may equally induce him to accept a bribe for so playing as to lose the match in which he represents his county or his club. For a man who makes a living or hopes to make it out of football, when he has accepted a bribe in the form of an increased salary for leaving his proper club and joining another with which he is not properly connected, not unnaturally begins to think if there is any other pecuniary means by which he may still further augment his livelihood. He does not much care which of the two sides in a football match wins the day, his own side or the opposite; for it is only by accident that he represents one side rather than the other. He is almost necessarily destitute of the local or social patriotism which would inspire a generous pride in the victory of his own city or his own club. He lacks, too, or it often happens that he lacks, the true instinct of sport, because he is not a gentleman in temper or feeling. If, then, temptation comes in his way, he may easily yield to it. It must not be supposed that the vast majority of professional football-players are willing to flout the dictates of their consciences by so playing as purposely to lose their matches; but the fact that here and there a player should sacrifice his honour to his love of money is in itself enough to compromise the good name of football as a sport.

The danger of misconduct among football-players has been greatly enhanced by the system of coupon-betting. For coupons, whether they relate to football matches or to horse-races, are the ostentatious means of extending the area of interest in the results. The number of people who can be spectators of a football match or a horse-race, as at the final match for the Association Football Cup, whether at the Crystal Palace or at Wembley Park, or at some great racing event like the Derby at Epsom, is and must be comparatively restricted. But everybody can buy a coupon and thereby can make a bet, even if he or she does not know a football from a cricket ball or one end of the horse from the other.