Custer chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, Black Hills, D.T. [S.D.]) 1880-1890, 1886-11-20
DIR Talmage Inveighs Against the Vice OF
Gambling.
Eho Demand for Excitement Universal in
Every Land.
The Church Herself by no Means Free
From the faint.

kutUt Nbb NtHN " - 80
'Aceldama, that is to say, the field OF
blood"
The money that Judas gave for sur
rendering Christ was used to purchase
a graveyard. AS the money vas blood
money, the ground bought by it was
called in the Syriac tongue, Aceldama,
..the field of blood" Well, there is
,one word that | want to write to-day
over every ~race-course where wagers
are staked, and every pool-room, and
every gambling saloon, and every
table, public or private, where men
md women bet for sums of money,
large or small, and that is a word in
.carnadined with the life of innumer-
able victims -Aceldama. The gam
bling spirit, which is at all times
A sTUPENDoUs Evil,
ever and anon sweeps over the coun-
try like an epidemic, prostrating I'M
counted thousands. There has never
been "A worse attack than that from
which all the villages. towns and cities
are now suffering. The farces recently
enacted ia our Brooklyn courtroom,
by which it was proved that in the City
of Churches there is not enough moral
force to put into the penitentiary the
gambling jockeys who belong there, is
only a specimen of the power gained
.by this abomination, which is brazen,
sanguinary, transcontinental and hemi-
spheric.
Gambling is the risking of something
more or less valuable in the hope of
winning more than you hazard. The
instruments of gaming may differ, but
the principle is the same. The shut
fling and dealing cards, however full of
temptation, is not gambling unless
stakes are put up; while on the other
hand, gambling may be carried on
without cards, or dice, or billiards, or
a ten-pin alley. The man who bets on
horses, on elections, on battles-the
mau who deals in fancy" stocks, or
conducts "a business which hazards *
ira capital, or goes into transactions
without foundation but dependent upon
what men call ''luck," is "A gambler.
1t is estimated that ~one-fourth Of the
business in London is done dishonest
ly. Whatever you expect TO get from
your neighbor without offering III
equivalent in money, or time, or skill
is either the product of theft or gam
ing. Lottery tickets or lottery policies
come into the same category. Fair
for the founding of hospitals, school
and churches, conducted on the %raff1in;
system, come under the same denomi
nation. Do not, therefore, associate
gambling necessarily with any instru
ment, or game, or time, or place, o
think the principle depends upoi
whether you play for a glass of win
or one hundred shares of railroa'
stock. Whether you %patronize ''auc
ton pools" French mutuals' o
..book-making," whether you emplo.
faro or billiards, rondo or keno, card
or bagatelle.
The VERY IDEA OF THE THING is DIS
HONEST;
for il Processes to bestow upon you
good for which you give no equiva
lent.
This crime is no newborn sprite, bu
a haggard transgression that come
staggering down under a mantle o
curses through many centuries. Al
nations. barbarous and civilized. hav'
been addicted to 1t. Before 1888 th'
French government received reve
nue. from gaming houses. In 1867 Eng
land for the improvement Of her har
bors instituted a lottery to be held al
the front door of st. Paurs cathedral
Four hundred thousand tickets wcr,
sold at ten shillings each. The British
museum and Westminster bridge Were
partially built by similar procedures
The ancient Germans would sometime
put up themselves and families a
prizes. and suffer themselves TO b'
bound, though stronger than the per
sons who won them.
But now the laws of the whole civ
ilized world denounce the system. En-
actments have been passed, but onl,
partially enforced, and at times not EN-
forced at all. The men interested il
gaming houses, and in jockey clubs
WELD such influence by their number
and affluence, that the Judge, the jury
and the police officer must be bold il
deed who would array themselve
against these infamous establishments
Tie house of of England ac
tuaily ~adjourns on Derry day to 90 on
and bet on the races; and in the hes
circles of society in this country to-da,
are many hundreds of, professedly, ~
spectacle men who are acknowledge,
gamblers.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars il