[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Stn,—Since the arguments advanced
against a betting tax by Canon Green and Mr. Maude (Spectator, January 9th) seem to be based on the assumption that gambling is a sin, they fail to appeal to Roman Catholics, who hold that gambling is not intrinsically wicked, and they will hardly influence many Catholic-minded Protestants or others who think that there are enough sins in the world without inventing new ones.
Nearly every human action, including even prayer and alms- giving, like gambling, may become sinful. A breadwinner with a wife and family, who took to spending his whole time in prayer, or who gave to public charities money that should have been spent upon his starving dependents, would clearly be a transgressor.
The sinfulness of gambling in itself was a seventeenth century proposition so widely accepted that it is difficult for people to realize its Puritanic origin.--! am, Sir, &c.,
Previous page
