3Wi GAMING & GAMBLING. 



If -raming could be always, or even frequently, 

 proved, and severely pnuislird. the police would lie 

 still more exposed to In- corrbpfed; for it would then 

 l»e the interest of gamblers to double their bribes to 

 secure a connivance at their breaelies of the law. 

 Scarcely a single conviction in a year is ever now ef- 

 fected. The police officer must have the warrant of a 

 magistrate before he ran forcibly enter a house. If not 

 bribed, he is narrowly watched; so that lie cannot take 

 gamblers by surprise. * Before he can get a warrant, 

 the party will have dispersed. Besides, ii may 

 be asked what private individual would incur 

 the trouble, and run the gauntlet of law expenses, by 

 acting* the odious part of a prosecutor I 



If 'Individual magistrates had the power to levy heavy 

 fines, by summary procei-s, on gamesters and gam- 

 blers, then something might possibly be done towards 

 diminishing the vice, ahho* counter-checks woidd 

 oppose tficmselves to such a course, uot to be perhaps 

 easily removed. Private gaming — and it is not here 

 always easy to say what is and what is oof so— is only 

 illegal by statute, and therefore not easily tangible. 



The vice then, in general, lias thus been long eman- 

 cipated from the check of public opinion. This last 

 phrase may sound strange as applied to the Straits 

 population. But amongst the Malays and Chui 

 public opinion has weight in a greater degree than k 

 perhaps generally suspected. 



Both of these classes, and particularly the Chinese, 

 are scrupulous observers of certain forms of outward 

 decorum. They, equally with other classes of our 

 native community, assign the same low level in so- 

 ciety to the opium consumer and the gambler. How- 

 ever some amongst each of these classes may pri- 

 vately indulge in these vices, the whole openly agree 

 in reprobating tliem ; and the respectable native* 



