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

place, ana II may De uuImuuy NclIOu
that each of our cities is cursed with this
evil.
In themselves most of the games employ
ed in gambling are without harm. Billiard
tables are as harmless as tea tables, and q
pack of cards as a pack OF letter envelopes,
unless stakes be put up But by their use
for gambling purposes they have become
significant of an infnity of wretchedness-
six hundred gambling saloons in New York
city when last counted.
Men wishing TO gamble will find places
Just suited to their capacity, not only in
the underground Oyster-cehar, or at the
table back of the curtain, covered with
greasy cards, orin the steamboat smoking
cabin, where the bloated wretch with rings
in his ears deals out his pack and drinks
all around-but in gilded parlors and amid
gorgeous surroundings.
THIS SIN WORKS RUIN,
first, by unhealthful stimulants. Excite
ment is pleasurable. Under every sky and
in every age men have sought it. The
Chinaman gets it by smoking his opium
the Persian by chewing hashish; the trap
per in a buffalo hunt; the sailor in a
squall; the inebriate in the bottle and the
avaricous at the gambling table. We must
at time have excitement. A thousand
voices In our nature demands it. 1t is
right. 1t is healthful. 1t is inspiriting
Its desire. God-given, But anything
that first gratifes this appetite and hurls
it back in terrific reaction, is deplorable
and wicked. Look out for the agitation
that, like a rough musician, in bringing
ont the tune plays so hard he breaks down
the instrument! God never made man
strong enough to endorse the wear and
tear of gambling excitement. No
wonder if, after having failed
in the game, men have begun to sweep off
imaginary gold from the side of the table.
The man was sharp enough when he started
at the game, but maniac at the close. At
every gaming table sit at one side Ecstasy,
Enthusiasm, ROmance-the frenzy OF Joy
on the other side, Fierceness, Rage, and
Tumult. The professional gamseter schools
himself into apparent quietness. The
keepers of gambling rooms are generally
fat, rollicking and obese; but thorough
professional gamblers, i'll nine cases out of
ten, are pale, thin; wheeling, tremulous,
and exhausted.
A young man having suddenly inherited
q large property, sits at the hazard tables
and takes up in dice box the estate won
by fathers lifetime's sweat, and shakes
it, and tosses it away. lntemperance soon
stigmatizes its victim-kicking him out, a
slavering fool, into the ditch, or sending
him, with the drunkard's hiccough, stag
rering up the street where his family
lives. But gambling does not in that way
expose its victims. The gambler may be
eaten up by
THE GAMBLERS POSITION,
vet YOU only discover it by the greed in
his eyes, the hardness of his features, the
nervous Iestlessness, the threadbare coat,
and his embarrassed business. Yet he is
on the road to hell, aud no preacher s
voice, or startling warning, or wife's en-
treaty can make him stay for q moment
his headlong career. The internal spell is
on him; giant is aroused within; and
though you bind him with cables, they
would part like thread, and though you
fasten him seven times round with chains,
they would snap like rusted wire; and
though you piled up his path heaven-high,
Bibles, tracts and sermons, and on the top
should set the cross of the Son of God, over
them all the gambler would leap like a
roe over the rocks, on his way to perdi-
ton. "Aceldama, the field Of blOodn'
Again, this sin works ruin by killing
industry. A man used to reaping scores
of hundreds of dollars from the gaming
table will not be content with slow work.
He will say: ''What is the use of trying
to make these fifty dollars in my store,
when can get five times that amount in
half an hour down to Billy's" You
never knew confirmed gambler who was
industrious. The men given to this vice
spend their time, not actively employed in
the game, in idleness, or intoxication, or
sleep, or in corrupting new victims. This
sin has dulled the carpenters saw, and
cut the band of the factory wheel, sunk
the cargo, broken the teeth of the farm
er's harrow, and sent strange Tightening
to shatter the battery of the philosopher.
The very first idea in gaming is at war
with all the industries of society. Any
trade or occupation that is of use is en-
nobling. The street sweeper advances
the interests of society by the cleanliness
effected. The cat pays for the fragments
it eats by clearing the house of vermin.
The fly that takes the sweetness from the
dregs of the cup, compensates by purify
ing the air and keeping back the pesti-
lence. But
THE GAMBLER GIVES NOT ANYTHING
for that which he takes. / recall that
sentence. He does make return; but it
is disgrace to the man that he fleeces, de-
spair to his heart. ruin to his business, an
guish to his wife, shame to his children,
and eternal wasting away to his soul. He
pays in tears, and blood, and agony, and
darkness, and woe.
What dull work is ploughing to the man
when in the village village saloon in one
night he makes and loses the value of q
Summer harvest! Who will want to sell
tape, and measure nankeen, and cut gar
uents, and weigh sugars, when in q
nights game he makes and loses, and
makes again and loses again the profits of
a season? John Borack was sent as mer-
camille agent from Bremen to England
and this country. After two
years his employers mistrusted
that all was not right He was default
er for eighty-seven thousand dollars. 1t
was found that he had lost in Lombard
Street, London, twenty-nine thousand dol
lars; in Fulton Street, New York, ten
thousand dollars, and in New Orleans,
three thousand dollars. He was impris-
oned but afterwards escaped, and went
into the gambling profession. He died in
lunatic asylum. This crime is getting
its lever under many mercantile house
in our cities, and before long down will
come the great establishment, crushing
reputation, home comfort and immortal
souls. How it diverts and sinks capital
may be inferred from some authentic
statement before US. The ten gambling
houses that were once authorized in Paris
passed through the hanks yearly, three
hundred and twenty-five millions of
faTncS.
WHERE DOES ALL THE MONEY COME
FROM?
The whole world is robbed! What is most
sad, there are no consultations for the loss
and suffering entailed by gaming Ifmen
fail in lawful business, God pities and so
ciety eommisserates; but where in the
Bible or in society, Is there any consola-