The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-27
THE "TR1BUNE" ON GAMBLING.

From the NJ Y. World.
The ITbune having discovered that
whereas "gaming- houses were formerly
licensed and public in Paris, they are so no
longer, desires to know whether 'the WORTH
is familiar with the reasons which dictated
the change? We are happy to respond in
the affirmative. Gaming houses lcers ''for-
merly licensed and public in Paris, but the
Ittdune apparently is not aware that they
were neither licensed nor public for
ages before they were either ''licensed" or
public The Iii6uHe'S plan of dealing
with mems vices as if they were mems
crimes and of getting 'the State to
''admonish and forbid where it is incompetent
to do MORE has been tried in Paris and
given up again, not once but dozen times
Under Louis XI, gambling was strictly pro-
hibited in the French capital and infamous
penalties were attached to it. Gambling
however, fourished exceedingly till Law
took its life with his mississippi" scheme
AS the eighteenth century grew older the
practice of fleeing persons of consideration
in such unrecognized gambling saloons as
those of the Hotel de Gevres and the Hotel
de Soissons had given birth to a special class
of rOgues, who for their astuteness were called
''Greeks'-a name which remains in vogue to
this day, the Greeks being still at our doors,
not only in unlicensed faro banks, but in the
persons of such political gamblers as, for
example, the Hon. Reuben Il. Fenton. In
1915 the Kings Lieutenant of Police, Sar-
tines, tried the licensing experiment. He
gave the proceeds to the hos
pitfalls, and gambling for time at Paris
was comparatively subdued, the un-
licensed houses which sprang up being
so infamous and perilous that none but the
most desperate ventured into them, and the
police baptized them by the expressive name
of ''hells. In 177S, the whole business was
prohibited again. 1t got worse, and not
better, under the prohibition, and so was
licensed again in 1856. Under the republic
it was again prohibited and again became ten
times worse than it had before been In
1906, Napoleon turned the whole thing over
to the police to be regulated as they might
find best; and under the Restoration the CITY
of Paris agreed to pay the Government !, ,5OO,-
600 francs year for the privilege of farm
ing out the gambling of the capital. The leases
granted under this privilege expired in 1887,
and, the whole matter having been debated at
length in the Chamber sof Deputies in 1886,
it was finally resolved on a motion of M. de
la Rochefoucault-Lianco that the gam
bling houses of the capital should be closed
on the 31st of December, 1887. The Finance
Minister in consenting to this motion, warned
the Deputies that it would be idle to expect
the suppression of gambling from the mea-
sure. "Close Frascatis, w he said, ''and you
will find the better classes hurry to gamble at
the Exchange, where fortunes will be lost and
won more frequently, more easily, and no
whit more morally" Subsequent history has
proved that he was right. Under the enor-
nous recent development of stock enterprises,
the green-table has lost its charm the world
over. The Baden-Baden and Homburg of to-
day, the Frascatis and Crockfords of long ago,
are but trivial sources and centres of moral
corruption in comparison with the stock
boards of the Old and the New World. Instead
of being ''circumscribed' and rendered less
prevalent" by the suppression of the licensed
gambling tables under police regulations,
gambling in Paris to-day is twenty times as
extensive and as prevalent as it was a genera
ton ago.
The truth is that no other definite conclu-
sioI can be safely drawn from the history of
sumptuary and moralizing legislation in the
past than this-that no good ever is done by
attempts to confound the vices which society
tacitly recognizes and condones with the
crimes which society holds to be incompati
BILE with its safety. But, whether the Tribune
accepts this conclusion or not, will it have the
goodness to let us know of what possible use
it conceives the severest legislation not only
against prostitution and gambling, but against
| dishonesty and murder, could be, in the face
| of the premium set upon prostitution and
| gambling, and dishonesty and murder, by the
respectable men who openly profess then
| f'esteem friendship, and respect for such
| persons as Daniel E. Sickles? To this ques-
| tion we desire an answer.