THE " DAILY NEWS " AND GAMBLING. [To Tar EDIT011 Ol THE
" srecreroa."] Sin,—In addition to the points raised in your columns by recent correspondents, there is one matter that seriously impugns the consistency of the proprietors and conductors of the Daily News. It loudly vaunts its superior respectability and morality over its contemporaries in excluding racing and betting news, and affects exceptional virtue as the exponent and keeper of the Nonconformist conscience. In a spirit that savours of Pharisaism it thanks God that its columns are not polluted by any reference to the turf or to horses, and that its pious readers are not shocked or contaminated by " tips" as to betting. At the same time, the hospitality of its advertising columns is granted, for valuable consideration, to one of the worst forms of gambling as carried on by what are commonly known as " bucket-shops." These are notorious frauds and swindles. They thrive upon the losses of their victims. It is a mere gambling for differences in market quotations. No stocks or shares are really bought or sold. Book-entries are made, and pretended accounts are opened. All the transactions are fictitious, but the dupes have to pay the money for the inevitable losses.
All this is common knowledge. The editor and manager of the Daily News and its writers must be aware of it. They cannot be ignorant as to the nature of the nefarious business carried on by the people who are allowed to advertise, often in displayed type spread over two or three columns, and sometimes to the extent of a whole page. Within the past few weeks I have noted the following instances, and there may have been more. Without specifying the names and addresses of these gambling dens, and thus affording them gratuitous publicity, it will suffice to indicate the specious and impudent inducements held out to entice ignorant and foolish flies into the spiders' webs. One firm has the effrontery to declare in three successive issues of the Daily News the opening of two " trusts," or " blind pools," adding : "not a single client has ever forfeited a penny as a result of transacting business with us." " The subscription, in any event, is repaid in full" Does the Daily News believe in such speculative philanthropy ? In a second case readers of the Daily News are invited to apply for a free copy of a book showing how fabulous gains can be secured. If so, why do not the advertisers retain the whole for themselves Another firm strongly and confidently recommend certain shares not quoted on the Stock Exchange, but which, it is evident, may be -unloaded upon a confiding public. In a fourth case, also advertised repeatedly, an assertion is made that more than a a quarter of a million has been paid to clients, and a guarantee is offered, whatever that may be worth, of £15,000 to be paid within ten weeks. A fifth instance is supplied in a whole page devoted to one of the most notorious blood-suckers of the fraternity, whose announcements are always couched in language calculated and intended to deceive even the most wary.
It must be reiterated that the conductors of the Daily News cannot plead ignorance of the real nature of the business carried on by these advertisers. Yet they are allowed to set their traps by means of this moral and religious newspaper. Other great journals that make no loud professions of superior virtue do not allow their columns to be degraded in this manner. The infamy rests with the paper that poses in a pre-eminent degree as the champion of propriety and as the sworn foe of racing and betting. So easy is it to "compound for sins we are inclined to by damning those we have no mind to." While the Daily News allows its pages to be the principal, if not the exclusive, channel for these pestilent announcements—the real character and effects of which are " writ large " in many a ruined home, and many a broken heart, and many suicides' graves—decency demands a cessation of the maudlin and sanctimonious boast about the exclusion of betting news. The falling off in the literary character of the paper, which used to be "a well of English undefiled," and the dignified exponent of a sane Liberalism, is lamentable enough. It is far worse to have to bring this grave indict- ment of a journal that for years maintained the best and noblest traditions of a great daily paper.—I am, Sir, &c.,
London-Institution, E.C. W. H. S. AUBREY. [It must not be forgotten, however, that the Daily News is by no means the only sinner in this respect. Whether it is a specially bad offender-we cannot Say, but certainly it has not a monopoly of " bucket-shop " advertisements. To prevent misunderstanding, which seems very rife in this con- troversy, let us say that we have made no allegations against any editorial action on the part of the Daily News. Its editor and staff are of course in no way implicated by the action of the proprietors of that paper, nor does any allegation of cant or hypocrisy hold good against them. They are not respon- sible for the incitements to betting in the Star.—ED. Spectator.]
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