The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Saturday, January 12, 1889. COMMUNITY OF GAMBLERS.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 246, 12 January 1889, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Saturday, January 12, 1889. COMMUNITY OF GAMBLERS.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’s* at be tby country’s, Thy God's, and truth's.

Our Napier correspondent’s comments on the rotten state of trade in Napier, and the dark foreboding to which it gives rise, forcibly bears out some of our remarks in recent issues on the unsound basis on which the commerce of New Zealand is founded. The failure of Messrs Kinross and Co is a sad instance of the false buoyancy

which delusive hopes may create, and it is one of those large failures which, because everyone with any knowledge of the affair must regret and sympathise with the principals, directs more than ordinary attention to came and effect. That the credit system has a great deal to do with the result it is hardly necessary to remark; but there is a great deal besides that. One has only to take a glance at the Napier papers to be convinced of the reckless tone that prevades the community. It seems to be nothing but a continual round of play-going and race-gambling. In a paper at our hand at this moment nearly half the news space is taken up with reading of this kind, and by which a very fair estimate can be made of the people. Theatrical companies which in Gisborne have been regarded as worse than second rate, in Napier are “ puffed ” up in a manner that would be regarded as contemptible by a showman of Dickens’ days. The affected religion of the place has asserted its insincerity by the construction of a vast edifice that would be more suited for the vaunting display of theatricals than as a building in which are to congregate the worshippers of the good old story. During the summer season there is such a multiplicity of race meetings that one may well wonder how things have been kept going so long without an exposure of the rottenness that is hidden beneath a gay surface. Still it must come to an end some time, and there are signs of a healthy change in Napier. A good purging would result in much benefit to that place, and the sooner the business people and residents of Napier recognise that a continuous round of gambling is not an indication of the prosperity of a town the sooner a turn for the better may be expected. There are now signs that this is b ing recognised, because the truth is being keenly felt, and we should regard a general “ wash-up ” of the loose commercial transactions of Napier in the hopeful light of the beginning of better things. If it does not come so soon as our Napier correspondent appears to anticipate, the delay will be of no advantage.