Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1886-11-08

Inlgnt hs Wen nave won Dy the CRACK OF the
billiard ball or the turn of the dice box.
Do you wonder that churches built,
lighted, or upholstered by such processes
as that come to great financial and spirit
ual decreptitude? The devil says: ST
helped to build that house of worship,
and l have as much right there as you
have;" and for once the devil is right.
We do not read that they have lottery
for building the church at Corinth, or at
Antioch, or for getting up an embroidered
surplice for Saint Paul.
All this l style ecclesiastical gambling.
More than one man who is destroyed can
say that his first step on the wrong road
was when he won something at q church
fair
The gambling spirit has not stopped for
any indecency. There transpired in Ma
ryland, lottery in which people drew for
lots in a burying- ground! The modern
habit of betting about everything is pro-
ductiye of immense mischief. The most
healthful and innocent amusements of
catching and base bali playing have been
the occasion of putting up excited and ex-
travagant wagers. That which to many
has been advantageous to body and mind,
has been to others the means Of financial
and moral loss. The custom is pernicious
in the extreme, where scores of men in re-
spectacle life give themselves up to bet
ting, now on this boat, now on that; now
on this ball club, now on that.
Betting that once was chiefly the accom-
paniment of the race course, is fast becom-
ing
A NATIONAL HABIT,
and in some circles any opinion advanced
on finance or politics is accosted with the
interrogation: How much will you bet
on that. sir?"
This custom may make no appeal to
slow, lethargic temperaments, but there
are IN the country, tens of thousands of
quick, nervous, sanguine, eNcitable tenn
perments, ready to be acted upon, and
their feet will soon take hold on death.
For some months, and perhaps for years,
they will linger in the more polite and
elegant circle of gamesters, but, after
while their pathway will come to the
fatal plunge. Finding themselves in the
rapids, they will try to back out, and,
hurled over the brink, they will clutch
the side of the boat, until their finger
nails, blood-tipped, will pierce the wood,
and then, with white cheek and agonized
stare, and the horrors of the lost soul lift
ing the very hair from the scalp, they
will plunge down where no graphing
hooks can drag them out.
Young man! stand back from all styles
of gambling. The end thereof is death.
The ten-pin alley affords the best Of physi-
cal exercise, and many an hour ! have
passed in some such place, getting physi-
cal invigoration; but many Of the ten-pin
alleys are now given up to gambling prac-
tices. Husbands, brothers, fathers, enter.
But down down your thousand dollars all
in gold eagles! Let the boy set up the
pins at the other end of the alley Now
stand back and give the gamester full
sweep! Roll the frst-there! it strikes!
and down goes his responsibility! Try it
again. Roll the second-there! it strikes!
and down goes the last feeling of human
ity! Try it again. Roll the third-there!
it strikes! and down goes his soul forever!
1t was not SO much the pins that fell, as
the soul! Fatal ten-strike for eternity!
"Aceldama, the field of blood"
Shall l sketch
THE HISTORY OF THE GAMBLER?
Lured by bad company he finds his way
into place where honest men ought never
10 20. He sits down to his first game, but
only for pastime and the desire Of being
thought sociable. The players deal out
the cards. They unconsciously play into
Satan's hands, who takes all the tricks
and both the players souls for trumps-
he being a sharper at any game. A slight
stake is put up just to add interest to the
play. Game after game is played. Larg-
er stakes and still larger They begin to
move nervously on their chairs. Their
brows lower and eyes flash, until now
they who win and they who lose, fired
alike with passion, sit with set jaws and
compressed lips, and clenched fists, and
eyes like fire balls that seem starting from
their sockets to see the final turn before it
comes; if losing, pale with envy and trem-
aloud with unuttered oaths cast back red
hot upon the heart-or, winning, with
hysterc laugh-"Ha! ha! l have itn'
A few years have passed, and he is only
the wreck of q man. Seating himself at
the game, ere he throws the first card, he
stakes the last relic of his wife-the mar
rsage ring which sealed the solemn vows
between them. The game is lost, and
staggering back in exhaustion he dreams
The bright hours of the past mock his ag
ony, and in his dreams, fiends with eyes
Of fire and tongues of fame circle, about
him with Joined hands, to dance and sing
orgies with hellish chorus, chanting:
Hail, brotherw kissing his clarnmy fore
head until their loathsome locks flowing
with serpents, crawl into his bosom, and
sink their sharp fangs and and suck up his
life's blood, and coiling around his heart
pinch it with chills and shudders unut-
terable.
TAKE WARNING!
You are no stronger than tens of thou
sands who have by this practice been over
thrown. No young man in our cities can
escape being tempted. Beware of the first
beginnings! This road is q down-grade,
and every instant increases the momen-
tum. Launch not upon this treacherous
sea. Splint hulks strew the beach. Ever
lasting storms howl up and down, tossing
unwary crafts into the Hellgate. speak
of what have seen with my own eyes. /
have looked off into the abyss, and have
seen the foaming and the kissing and the
whirling of the hOrrid deep in which the
mangled victims writhed, one upon an
other, and struggled, strangled, bias
phemed, and died-the death-stare Of eter-
nal despair upon their cOuntenances as the
waters gurgled over them!
To q gamblers deathbed there comes no
hope He will probably die alone. His
former associates come not nigh his dwell
ing. When the hour comes his miserable
soul will go out of miserable life into a
miserable eternity. As his poor remains
pass the house where he was ruined, old
companions may look out a moment and
any: There goes the old carcass-dead at
last" but they will not get up from the
table. Let him down now into his grave.
Plant no tree to cast its shade there, for
the long, deep eternal gloom that settles
there is shadow enough. Plant no for
get-me-nots' or eglantines around the
spot. for flowers were not made TO grow on
such blasted heath. Visit it not in the
la L. A,,s