Recent Book: Trying One's Luck: Wheels of Fortune
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6403700312 |
| Subject Matter | Recent Book |
It
may be added
that
the great
variety-and
often the
paucity-of
training systems in the United States
has quite naturally led to the pro-
duction of a considerable canon
of
instructional literature, in the building
up of which the publisher of the
book
under review has played a great part.
The Americans have been much
readier to publish the basic knowledge
and even the basic know-how of
policing than has
our
own Service.
Without a close study on the ground
it is impossible,
of
course, to assess
the real value
of
the various pro-
grammes Dr. Gammage describes.
Just how substantial is the technical
instruction, just how effective are the
more academic subjects, and what is
the level at which study is carried on:
these are questions which can only
be answered accurately by someone
familiar with practice on both sides of
the Atlantic. Dr. Gammage's
book
is the most stimulating work to appear
in this field for a long time and in
the present state of the evolution of
police training in our own country it
will repay the most careful consider-
ation. P.R.
TRYING
ONE'S
LUCK
JOHN
DRZAZGA:
Wheels
of
Fortune. Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois,
U.S.A.
S11.50e.
There are very few policemen who
have
not
spent long periods on reserve
during industrial disputes, elections,
civil disturbances and demonstrations
of all kinds. And how do we while
away the time? And in conforming
to
that
time-honoured pastime, how
many know
that
the .. devil's bed-
posts"
is the four of spades?
That
is
something I learned from the excellent
glossary of slang terms included in this
well-written and comprehensive book.
The
author
has clearly made an
intensive study of all forms of gambling
-bookmaking,
pari-mutuel betting,
numbers, roulette, dice, one-armed
bandits, lotteries, cards, carnival
games, bucket shops and other
permutations of these basics. He also
gives an interesting account of the
Mafia, gaming houses and gambling
contracts, and sets out his reasons for
saying
that
crime DOES
pay-at
least in the gaming racket.
He makes interesting comparisons
between the laws governing games of
chance in the United States of America
and the United Kingdom and traces
the origins of various games as far
back as the first century A.D.
He studies all the tricks from the
crooked roulette wheel to the heated
or frozen numbers ball.
144
Above all he exposes the evils of
the influence of gambling racketeers
on politics, which after all is the
gravest
danger-and
it could happen
here as it has happened in America.
We have our scandals. Some day
we might think that recent legislation
which legalizes certain forms of gam-
bling is a social evil.
It
certainly
could be. The danger is not in per-
mitting fools to be parted from their
money, but in allowing unscrupulous
people to obtain it.
Reading the book makes one realize
the dangers, and makes one realize also
how fortunate we are in this country
in the standard of law enforcement
by
both
police and judiciary. I
doubt
if we here will ever experience a
deliberate mistake being made in the
wording of a warrant so as to give
grounds for dismissing the charge on
atechnicality!
The
book
is worth reading for its
learned treatment of various forms of
gambling, its legal comparisons, and
its exposure of cheating; but, above
all for the dangers inherent in per-
mitting unscrupulous people to batten
upon the cupidity and greed to which
most of us are susceptible. T.L.
Mareh 1964
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