Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-03-09
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Our evening contemporary Is annoyed
exceedingly concerning a brace Of para
graphs that appeared in the RECORD
UNION of Saturday. The first quoted from
our neighbor's enthusiastic expressions
upon The beneficial effects of licensing
gaming, and how broadly 1t conserves good
morals; the other recorded the suicide Of
| a young and recently married man Of Lon
don, who had Just lost $4,000 at the
gaming tables Of Monaco. Our license
contemporary fails to discern the relation
Of these two paragraphs 1t struggles
YEARLY with the weighty problem, " Was
| the REOoRD-USIo serious" and finally
arrives at the conclusion that the fact that
gambler committed suicide in Europe
has nothing to do with the policy of licens-
ing gambling in Sacramento, and that the
RncoRD-UNIoN was really Joking Our
contemporary is at liberty to take its
choice between seriousness and jocularity.
If there is any joke, it is at its expense,
since no one with ordinary intelligence
Will venture to maintain that gamblers are
born, not made. The most devoted slave Of
gaming was at one time innocent of the
vicious practice The young Englishman
was gambling at a licensed game was play
ing in city, the revenues of which are de-
rived from licensed games. He lost his
quarter of = million to men licensed to beat
him out of it. License and publicity, a
Young wife and good station failed to pro
tect him from the alIurements Of the green
cloth. License was not the "only practi
cal plan" in his case. 1t was not the
very best thing that was ever done" for
him 1t was not in the interest Of good
morals" so far rs he was concerned. His
brokcn-hearted young widow viii scarcely
be brought to believe that the licensing of
gaming was beneficial to him. The home
he has disgraced has many counterpart
in Sacramento. The difference in longi-
tudo between Monaco and Sacramento is
not difference of principle. Monaco is a
principality Of Italy, and is one of the few
places in which FOR gambling there is no
| legal restraint. Sacramento is a city in
California where gambling is licensed in
open defiance OF law. London is a city in
England where gambling is not licensed.
From the latter to the first the wretched
young Fnglishman went to crafty the
passion for gaming, which is the same in
Sacramento as in Monaco. lie might have
home to Sacramento for the same purpose.
The freedom allowed him would have been
no greater in Monaco than in Sacramento.
But London society is shocked at the re-
suit Thrre is a difference between Lon
don and Sacramento. The former boasts
of no journal that holds the licens-
ing of gambling to be conservative
Of good morals, Sacramento has. We
congratulate London London's citizens
do not permit themselves to go on record
as favoring the licensing Of gambling. We
congratulate the citizens of London. A
fraternal feeling should exist between
Monaco and Sacramento. The Trustees
should hasten to secure an official inter
change Of congratulations between the two
cities; or We would suggest that they emf
crate to Monaco. They will there find no
law to prevent the free exercise Of the
noble practice Of licensing gambling.