WHY NOT A TAX ON BETTING ?
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Ill accordance with your wonted equity, whereby you print letters, pro as well as contra, bearing on a cause you advocate, perhaps you may think fit to admit into your columns a demur to part of your arguments " Why not a tax on betting ? "
Your writer urges : . There is no more harm h spending money on it [betting] than there is in spending money on a box at the theatre, or on a day's golf, or a day's shooting or fishing." I suggest that this comparison is not analogous, and is pernicious. The advantages, of the three latter especially, are health, exercise, comradeship, and a recreation which harms no one. Betting is. attended by none of these advantages. The main object, honestly sifted, is a sordid gain of money, even though thereby the " bettor " may be treading on the narrow path of subterfuge, the " bettee "- perhaps your best friend—may be heavily injured, and the comradeship comprises a considerable number of blacklegs.
The foregoing applies principally to turf betting. Never- theless, I venture to suggest that a man may with a perfectly clear conscience frequent many a racecourse and lose—or gain—many an innocuous, modest " fiver."—I am, Sir, &c., HENRY KNOLLYS, Colonel.
Late Royal Artillery.
25 Meyrick Park Crescent, Bournemouth.
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