(11) Betting. is, by the admission of all judges, magis= trates,- police officers, and social workers, the greatest. cause of crime. a famous "Birm "Clerkenwell" gang, and other bands of murderous. ruffians, "who live by blackmailing bookmakers - with violence, first attracted. attention at Salisbury,' and other small meetings, soon after. the' Armistice. They rapidly spread to the larger meetings, and led to the formation of the B. P. A. (Bookmakers' Protection Association) ayhich employs ruffians of a. like kidney' to protect bookmakers. Loaded sticks soon gave place to knives, knives to Browning pistols, and there have- been murderous Outbreaks in London, Sheffield, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and other great towns. The police claim<to have got the matter fairly in hand, but the slightest relaxation of an elaborate and expensive supervision would immediately lead to a fresh outburst. Writing on this subject. in the "Manchester Guardian," in, February -1913,. I said "The great mass of these men are a menace to civilization, ready for any crime which promises spoil with reasonable chance of safety. The police know them and look. among them whenever they want to: make an arrest. A man once a member of this class never does an honest. day's work again. as long as he lives. He is purely latory."?
period of prolonged bad trade brings recruits to this class,
sporting papers inning wil and the lads wal sell the daily the "One" forelock" published at 10 a.m.) tend constantly to fall into it. The late CE. E. B, Russell, author of "Young Gaol Birds," "The Making of the Criminal" etc., whose wonderful work at the Heyrod Street Lads Club in Manchester was recognized when the Government made him Chief Inspector of Reformatories, once said to me that three weeks of selling such papers was enough to ruin any lad for life. Thirty years of work among lads in the Old Kent Road, the East India Dock Road, the Market District, Leeds, and the Green-gate and Islington districts of Salford, have supplied me with many proofs of the truth of this But it is not merely the book. maker, and. his companions, who are corrupted. More than. 12 years ago the Recorder of the Central Criminal Court in London said, "Betting does more than anything else to bring young men. and lads _to.this. court as criminals."—Detective-Inspector Thompson. of Scotland Yard, when asked before the Commission why he said that gambling was the chief cause of crime, replied,. More prisoners attribute their fall.. to that than to any other cause." Sir Alfred "Butt, objecting to. my statement that believed betting was the cause of at least 10,000 cases of theft, bankruptcy and suicide in a year, pointed out that only 54,000 cases of theft came. into court yearly. I have -since sent, him evidence from three bank managers, a travelling secretary of the. B:. Officers Guild, and; a.big employer of labour, that' not one.case in
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