Along with this evidence we must also take that of Mr. Robert Knight, General Secretary of the Boilermakers’ Society, and a magistrate of Newcastle, who says:—
Betting generally is largely on the increase; especially is this noticeable amongst young men and women. Between the hours of 11.55 and 3.15 a bookmaker was recently seen to take 236 bets from men, women, and children in South Shields.... Unrestrained by Act of Parliament, the bookmakers go from door to door in the streets occupied by the working classes for the purpose of inducing women to bet.... When the workmen are at their work these bookmakers go round and visit the parts where they live, get hold of the wives of the workmen when the husband is at work, and get them to bet. Very often it does not end in betting with spare money: a woman very often takes the things of the house and pawns them to get the money to bet with.
There is still another reference to this practice in Mr. Knight’s evidence, which we give in full:—
Q. With regard to the house-to-house betting, would you include that in the prohibition (i.e. of street betting)?
A. I would. I think it has become a terrible evil—one of the worst I know of.
Q. Do these bookmakers solicit the women or whoever opens the door to them?
A. Yes; they go from house to house, and they get the women, in the absence of their husbands, to bet, and I have known in some cases where the money has been so short that the mother has gone and taken some things out of the house and pawned them in order to get money to bet with.
Q. Have you known of bad cases of women betting with their husbands’ money, for example?
A. Yes.