It must be A nice thing to have money to
burn—or to put on dogs and horses. Those of us who are struggling to buy ink and paper and things like that may be forgiven for being a little envious. The Churches' Committee on Gambling, which, I imagine, checks its figures with some care, has just issued some statistics of greyhound racing-track betting. In 1943 the totalisators on 104 tracks took £59,663,800, as against £49,989,183 in, 1942 and £36,412,779 in 1938. But there are bookmakers on all these tracks, as well as totalisators, and there are many tracks where there are only bookmakers. It is computed that including these the total for 1943 must reach fully £x20;000,000. Information for the early part of 1944 seems to sug- gest that the upward move continues. I do not moralise about these figures : I merely cite them as raw material for more professional
'moralists—and economists.
* * * *
Previous page
