r.A\tfx*fi & GAMBLING* 0">f> 



TIk: Chinese were, nevertheleSI, permitted for a 

 long- time to game openly at their festivals, while an 

 interdict lay on every other class of Hrilish subject. 

 This was virtually pronouncing fhat, the vice which 

 the law reprobated and prohibited as injurious, be- 

 came quite innocuous when fumigated with the in- 

 cense of the Tokon& or Joss-house, and it further in- 

 volvcd the startling- anomaly of the law protecting and 

 saving harmless amongst one clasfcof subjects, a practice 

 which it condemned, and must have punished as 

 destructive to morals and social order, if indulged in 

 hy any one of the other and ?lill more numerous 

 classes'. q 



Ft is fcitfficieliily notorious (fiat gaming has alarm- 

 ingfy spread amongst die native population shire the 

 period when it was relieved from the control of the 

 rfcfctt&d renter ot the tax. 



Forn if i ly, heavy punishments, including fines, were 

 imposed on persons* convicted of keeping open gam- 

 rftg houses, or gaming openly in large parties ; but the 

 Pohce reports in 1818, shew ed that no good had been 

 thereby accomplished. Now, it but rarely happens 

 that any cases of gaming or gambling are brought be- 

 fore eiilter magistrates or ji n ies ; because, not only can 

 tfeft keepers of gaming houses and other practised 

 gamblers, afford to bribe the police peons highlv, 

 hut the} are, it is to be feared, too often able to defy 

 the Jatter when not bribed. If similar effects are 

 felt in London, what must be their extent amidst the 

 heterogenous, and in many respects, partially civilized 

 population of the Straits ? 



** wool J, he thought fJioU up gambling ua sanctioned by taw and entice people 

 " 10 become gambler*/' yet adds, "1 am fully aware of the great difficulty of 

 " putting a complete stop to a vice that seems inherent in the character ofihe 

 " Chinese and leas so amons t the Malays." 



Sir ftdph Rice, the Recorder, opposes the licensing system, on the ground 

 chiefly, that he thought it would appear like sanctioning 'by i aw a pcruloiom 

 ▼ice. 



