WORKING-CLASS EXPENDITURE ON AMUSEMENTS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPEOTATOE.1
in,—There are one or two side-issues raised by the Old-Age Pensions Bill which are, I think, worth consideration. The aspects of the question to which I refer are connected with the expenditure of the working classes on the amusements and relaxations they follow. I trust I shall be acquitted in ordinary circumstances of any desire to restrict the rights of any section of the community to choose its own pleasures and to spend its money in the fashion which pleases it best. As an individualist, I should refrain from criticism as impertinent, and interference as uncalled for. But when I am confronted with a scheme for which I shall have to pay my share, how- ever disinclined to do so I may be, either in the form of direct taxation, or indirectly by relief of taxation unduly withheld from the commodities of daily use, such as tea and sugar, I feel that as I pay the piper, I have the ancient right to call the tune.
I have seen it stated somewhere—I believe in the column reserved for athletics in one of the daily papers—that over 21,000,000 per annum is a fair representation of the sum annually'expended upon professional football in this country, and as I am assured that the working classes are unquestion- ably the main support of the various clubs engaged, I am justified in assuming that a fair proportion of this amount comes out of their pockets. The " Cup-tie " games alone, excluding the "Final" at the Crystal Palace, produced gate-money to the amount of 257,000 odd. What, then, must have been the total returns of all the clubs engaged in the forty (and in some cases more) inter-club matches that are played during the season ? A modest estimate would not, I imagine, place the amount at a less figure than half- a-million. But there is still another issue, and a far more disagreeable one, to these matches which I only stumbled on by accident, and which, I think, is of grave import, not only from a national point of view, but from that of the best interests of the game itself. I refer to the spirit of gambling which seems to have grown up side by side with the spread of pro- fessional football. Standing on the ground of a well-known London football club towards the close of this last season, I overheard a group of youths discussing their respective winnings and losings in connexion with some lottery or "sweepstakes" for which they appeared to have entered. On questioning them, they very courteously explained that they had instituted among themselves a system indistinguishable from the above, by which an entrance-fee entitled the sub- scriber to try the luck of the draw for the names of the winning clubs in certain inter-League matches played every week, the total pool being divided among the winners. The entrance-fee varied, so I was informed, from id. to 3d., rising in some cases in games of special importance to as high as 6d., which seemed to be the limit. They umlauted me—and from various inquiries I have since made I see no reason to doubt the truth of the statement—that the practice is common amongst the followers of the game. I do not mean to imply from the foregoing that all workmen who frequent football matches necessarily gamble on the results; but I do say that it shows that probably a quite considerable sum of money is dissipated in this way.
Then there are the music-halls. I have lately visited several of these places of amusement, and while not urging anything to the detriment of the way in which they are conducted, or of the behaviour of those who frequent them, I have been struck by the extraordinary number of the working classes present at the two separate performances which are given in these balls every evening. Both are invariably—in my experience, at all events—crowded. From what I have seen I should say that quite half the support drawn from the public comes from the working classes alone.
Again I say that while I have no right to interfere with the workman when spending his own money. I have every right to do so when he is spending wine. If a portion of the poorer class can find money to pay 6d. a week during eight months' football to watch the game they support, to say nothing of music-balls, and perhaps some gambling in pence, they can also find 3d. a week to secure themselves against a penurious old age. If they do not consider the game worth the candle, can they object if I hold the same view as they do themselves ? The argument against this proposition apparently is that amusements keep the working man out of the public-house. I have no means of deciding whether this is correct. But, in any case, it certainly seems to me that this contention pays him an exceedingly bad compliment, for it implies that if he is not being amused his time will he even less profitably engaged! Am I, in common with thousands of others who do not spend anything like 6d. a week upon their amusements, to be mulcted of the little the rates leave us to provide a subsidy for the amusement of one class ?
Your readers may remember that when old John Willet of immortal memory was surprised by the rioters in the Maypole' Inn, which they wrecked before his eyes, be —after being restored with a drink of his own liquor-- "thrust his hand into his pocket and inquired what was to pay ? Adding, as be looked vacantly round, that he believed there was a trifle of broken glass." John Bull is asking himself the first question now: what the amount will be for the indirect results,—tbe "trifle of broken glass " ? Time, no
doubt, will show.—I am, Sir, &c., ANTI-SOCIALIST.
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