Mr. Russell Allen, managing proprietor of the Manchester Evening News, gave evidence as to the harm done by the betting press, particularly the halfpenny papers, with their racing editions, which conduced largely to the class of betting done in the street by working men, concerning which he read letters from employers of labour attributing fraud and embezzlement to their work-people betting. Great numbers of bets were also made inside the works. His own newspaper had given up tips and tipsters’ advertisements, and had suffered accordingly. It was not prudent for a newspaper to go beyond that single-handed. If starting prices were made illegal of publication for all alike, it would have a great effect.
Superintendent Shannon, of the L Division, Metropolitan Police, had had great experience of the evils of street betting. Last year[14] in Lambeth 441 persons had been proceeded against. They were fined over £2000 in all. One man was fined sixteen times in the year. Every large firm’s employees in South London were waited on by one or more bookmakers. All the bookmakers employed scouts to give them warning.
Superintendent Wells, of the Limehouse Division, said there had been a great increase in street betting in East London in the last few years. One man was fined twenty-eight times and one twenty-seven. The bookmakers took up their stands outside the railway stations and factories, and in the busy streets. They were thus enabled to catch the workmen going to or from their work.
Lord Provost Chisholm, of Glasgow, gave evidence with the knowledge and sanction of the Corporation. Betting had increased all round, especially street betting with the industrial classes. He spoke both from personal knowledge and the complaints made to him by citizens. Betting was carried on to a large extent in factories and workshops, the bookmakers sometimes having their own agents employed in them. He would make the penalties more severe, and would seize all money found on bookmakers and imprison them. He believed public opinion would support such measures. He was opposed to licensing bookmakers. Women were in the habit of betting with bookmakers like men.
Chief Constable of Glasgow: He agreed with the evidence of the previous witness. Licensing would only encourage the bookmakers. They ought to be imprisoned. There was very great risk of the police being tampered with by bookmakers. Some had already been bribed. Many Glasgow bookmakers did business by telegram and letter. The Post Office had been complained to, but could do nothing.
Mr. Bryan Thomas, Hon. Sec. of a Labour Organisation, said he had forty years’ experience among the working men of East London. He would do away with street betting entirely. He would treat the bookmakers as rogues, and give them three months’ hard labour.
Rt. Hon. Jas. Lowther, M.P., a member of the Jockey Club for twenty-five years, did not think that large bets had increased of late years, but betting was more widely diffused, and not confined to sporting circles. He considered that there had been a great increase of betting all round. He could not suggest any way of reducing the misery caused by it. He saw difficulties in the way of licensing bookmakers.
Mr. W. B. Woodgate, the well-known aquatic authority, would license bookmakers, and would fine any of them practising without a licence £500 or six months’ hard labour. The witness related a case of police bribing which he had brought before the authorities at Scotland Yard, but it ended in nothing owing to their careless handling of it.
Mr. Edward Hulton,[15] jun., of the Manchester Sporting Chronicle, was against the prohibiting the publication of the odds, and in favour of licensing bookmakers.
Mr. J. Bain, formerly a member of Tattersall’s Club, also of the Victoria, Beaufort, and Albert Clubs, gave evidence as to the poisoning of race-horses for the purposes of the betting market, and how leading bookmakers were laying heavily at the club against the poisoned horses before the general public knew of what had been done. He also showed that many of the prices quoted in the newspapers were mere bogus quotations to induce the outside public to bet.