With regard to the _friendly_ actions in which Mr. Stutfield had been engaged as counsel on behalf of the betting men, viz. the _Kempton Park_ case, _Stoddart_ of _Sporting Luck_ against his printers, the _Argus Printing Co._, and _Thomas_ v. _Sutters_ (the street bookmaker’s appeal against the bye-law), he maintained that there was nothing improper about them (Q. 411, 552, 561).
Mr. HAWKE also gave evidence as to the corruption of the public services and British sports by the professional betting system, and of its disastrous effects, especially among the wage-earning classes. Amongst the records of his Society taken from the courts of law in five and a half years were 80 suicides, 321 embezzlements, and 191 bankruptcies, the witness pointing out reasons for believing that these numbers were very much below the true totals.
Mr. HAWKE said that his Society held the same opinion as that published by Sir Fitzjames Stephen (author of the _Digest of the Criminal Law_) in the _Nineteenth Century Magazine_, July 1891, who said that the business of a betting agent was carried on in defiance of the general body of the law, and added, “The existence of such a person appears to me to be an insult to the law.” The National Anti-Gambling League made the following recommendations, based upon a study of the question lasting over eight years:—
_Street and Public Place Betting._ Increased fines and imprisonment.
_Newspaper Coupon Betting._ Making it illegal to publish Advertisements of English and foreign betting-houses.
_Tipsters’ Circulars._ Making illegal to issue.
_Paying Bets in Public-houses._ Making illegal.
_Areas controlled by Private Amending the Act of 1853 if Proprietors._ the _Powell_ v. _Kempton Park_ case should be accepted as the correct construction of the Act.
_Publication of the Betting Making illegal. Odds (S.P. or Ante-post)._
_Trade of Professional Betting._ Making illegal.
Colonel FLUDYER (commanding Scots’ Guards), Chairman of Tattersall’s Committee, said that they spent a great deal of time in adjusting betting disputes. He advocated licensing bookmakers who plied their trade away from the race-course, but leaving things at races as they are.
CHIEF CONSTABLE OF MANCHESTER said that the increase in betting was chiefly among artisans and the working classes generally, resulting in neglect of wives and children, disregard for parents, becoming careless and indifferent in their occupations, and frequent embezzlements from their employers. Betting was general at athletic meetings in the Manchester district, many of them depending on it for financial success. The Kempton Park decision had prevented police action. In many instances competitors perform only to suit the books of the betting men. Street betting was the most pernicious form of the evil. Some publicans pay street bookmakers to carry on in proximity to their houses. He advocated a large fine and imprisonment for street offenders. Incitements to betting in newspapers should be restrained, and the transmission by post of betting matter should be made illegal.