Georgetown weekly news., 1855-05-17
Gambling Act.

The gambling act, says the Sacrament
Union, goes into operation on the Eth =,
this month, in accordance with its terms
Its provisions, if enforced, will operate to
evate the moral reputation of the people =,
the State. Let the law be strictly eneoro
ed, and in few weeks there will mot /.
found a public gambling house in the Stata
In the city of New York Mayor Wood
who has won golden opinions by his fea,
lessness and energy in enforcing the lap,
from all parties, has pounced down uDon
the gambling hells in that city, and is like.
ly to exterminate them. Under this law
they should be exterminated in CaliforD.
In commenting upon and approving the
course of Mayor Wood, the New York
Tribune describes the character and occr
patton of the gambler
"The gambler is so much worse than The
highway robber, by so much as skill is su.
perior to force. Robbery means the forci.
BILE possessing yourself of what belongs to
another. The gambler disuses force, but
in place of it he uses skill, cunning, fraud
and thereby amasses property which be.
longs by every law to his neighbor. Eve
ry one who habitually enriches himself bv
superior knowledge skill or craft, without
atthe same time adding to the public wealth
is, in the most intimate sense of the word
a robber.
But the gambler is pre-eminentIy such
one. His calling is the most disreputabIe
known, and no man, consequently, whose
sympathy with his kind, or whose suscepti.
bility to the affection of his fellows is MT
utterly dead, could afford to be found in t
a day. He knows that the poor fool whose
senses he has debauched, whose blood he ba,
maddened, whose thousands he has pocket.
ed over night, has, perhaps, a wife aud chil,
dren dependent upon him. He knows that
he has father and mother, brother and
sister, kinsman and friend, intimately link.
ed with him by every cleanly tie of natural
and social affinity; and yet he can see wife
and children degraded to the street-can
see the poor wretch he has poisoned, striu.
pSu VI ONCl IIIlC W GHG GcSpcCG anu aieC.
tion of relative and friend, and reduced to
the level of the loathsome beggar, and his
deadly smile will be as bland, and his filthy
sleep as undisturbed, as though his bosom
were an angels shrine Talk of a gam.
bler's bosom, indeed He'll lights up no
such ravenous flame within earthly pre-.
cincts as burns within that lurid and sitting
bosom.
1t is the persuasion of many persons that
when men die, or go into the spiritual world,
they find law universally operative, which
makes the outward aspect Of man infali-
bly, attest to their eyes his inward diSposi
tion and character. There the good man.
under whatever natural in6rmities and cru
ell blights of fortune he may have struggled,
will outwardly appear what he inwardly is,
beautiful with the spendor and power Of
immortal youth. And there the bad man,
under whatever masks of stimulated virtue
and whatever delusive shows of success he
may have passed through life, will drop bis
masks one after another, and finally stand
forth an image of loathsome deformity and
deceepitude. If our readers share these
philosophic persuasions, we would rather
trust to their imaginations than to our OWn
feeble pen to paint the outward lineamentS
commensurate with the foul and yenOmow
nature Of the professional gambler"