The Portland daily press., 1872-07-02
Betting.
BY HENRY WARD BEECHER.


Mr.. Bonner, do you ever bet9 Do you
think it helps business, tests mans SINGER
ity, aids his morals or, in the long run, fills
his pockets? How is it with Dexter, Startle
and Pocahontas? Do you think that a bet
on their performance would get two seconds
less out of them?
/ believe that you regard yourself as a re-
former, first, by purging out the last atom OF
dullness from trotting horses, and getting the
uttermost speed out of them; and second,
by trotting horses ON fair and gentlemanly
principles, that is, without the inoculation of
gambling bets. How Is it, then, that you
suffer Dexter's best time to go without tech
nical or turf record, simply because it was
time made without betting? Is everything
in the hands of gambling jockeys? Are all
rules and regulations made for betting men?
Is betting such virtue that he who does not bet
is punished, and his horse is refused all recog-
milton? Are there not hundreds and thou
sands of gentlemen who like good horse,
and who count it no inhumanity to test their
speed, who still refuse to bet, or put their
nags in formal public race, where the whole
business is organized ON the recognition OF
betting?
You have done something in the way of
cultivating a love of fine horses; but Is it
not even more important that non-betting
| owners of fast horses should be considered
| equal, at least, TO amateur and professional
betting men?
There is another matter-Bettinq on EIec-
tions. Can anything be more foreign to good
sense, sound principles and real patriotism
than TO turn politics into huge gambling
| game? Are they not bad enough already?
| Do they not stir up the passions of men
enough, without this Greek fire of betting?
There are two kinds; the larger betting,
which means real business, which is carried
| on in the expectation of making money.
sc haf hat
| suit of clothes, supper, or any other small
matter. This is mere pander to the other.
| 1t breaks down the principle and smothers
the conscience. A man who bets five dollars
may not be stimulated as much by that small
risk as if he had planted five thousand; but
he is really gambler. If it is right for a
| respectable man to bet on an election pair
of gloves or dozen oysters, then it is right
to make up bank for fifty thousand dollars.
| 1t seems to me that every right-minded
man, who has hitherto made his bets on the
results of political campaigns, should look
upon this matter more soberly, and refuse to
add a spark to a fire which already burns
fiercely enough. A betting man is always ON
the side of bad company That way lies all
manner of knavery. A man who never bets
is on plain, open, uDquestionable ground.
Only brutal fellow would bet on his moth
er's chances, if she were critically sick. No
\ man would bet on his brothers life if he
were on trial for treason, nor on his children
chances if a mortal disease should break out
among them. Why not? Even brute
would feel that such betting was dishonora-
BILE.
Why should one bet on that which should
be to every honest man as sacred as his own
household, namely, the affairs of the COM
monweath the interests of patriotism?
The virus of gambling is hard to expel when
once it is in the blood. But there are thou
sands of the Ledger household who have
never learned the pernicous habit. Is it not
the Ledger's duty to give them sound advice
-Neto York Ledger.
THE following conversation between a
young lady who wrote for magazines and an
old gentleman who believed he could speak
| English, occurred somewhere in Massachu-
sets, and is quoted for the benefit of gram
marians:
Old gentleman-Are there any houses
building in your village?
Young lady-No, sir. There is a new
house being built for Mr.. Smith, but it is the
carpenters who are building.
Gentleman-True, l sit corrected. To be
building is certainly a very different thing
from to be being built. And how long has
Mr.. Smiths house been being built?
Lady Qooks puzzled for a moment, and
then answers rather abruptly y)-Nearly
year.
Gentleman-How much longer do you
think it will be being built?
Lady (Explosively Don't know.
Gentleman-I should think Mr.. Smith
would be annoyed by its being so long being
built, for the house he now occupies being
old, he must leave il, and the new being only
being built, instead of building, as he ex-
pected, he can not
Here the gentleman perceived that the la
dy had disappeared.
THE Hon. Ben. Wade has written a letter
in which he speaks as follows in regard to
the democratic party and Greeley: when a
great political party has become so conscious
ly depraved that they feel there is no hope of
reform, suicide may, perhaps, in such case be
virtue, and such seems to be the condition of
the democratic party at this time. By adopt
ing Mr.. Greeley as their standard-bearer they
deliberately admit, If they are honest, that
the poorest, weakest, most vacillating and un-
certain republican is an improvement on any,
thing to be found in their own party" Con-
cerning the republican party he says: ''To
doubt the success of such party when pitted
against the broken cohorts of the old slavery
party is an insult t. the intelligence and vir-
tue of the American people,"
LADIES FARsnNG.-H. G.'s opinion as to
the best mode of raising Dolly Vardens
''Plant two rows of bobinette, hemstitched,
and inserted with double-seeded ruffles of
cade tape, with quilted gusset at each end.
Then lay of half an acre in blue organdy,
with double-ruffled bias cuttings running
transversely across the field, with the whole
lined with point-applique futed ticking, and
with proper care and no chinch bugs the crop
will be splendid one."