The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1890-07-31
BILL ARP'S PHILOSOPHY.
atlanta Consultation,

tne LOUISIANA iOtlery. n nlau WoulueuG
think of such thing if he based his
chance on facts and figures. His chance
to draw S. is about one in hundred, and
to draw S100 about one in thousand,
and for the capital prize one in q half
million. But he bases his hopes on good
luck or fate or destiny, and all this is
founded on conceit. He has no clear idea
On the subject, but has dreamy super
stiton that fate has picked him out for
her fayors and will give him q prize this
time
But figures don't lie, and chances can
be calculated with as much certainty as
the motions of the stars. The best lee
ture ever heard in college was from
Professor Mccoy on the regularity of ir-
regular things. The wheel of fortune is
not going to drop prize to man because
he needs it, or because of his faith or his
hope or his conceit. I was Illuminating
over this because have received letter
from good, fond, yearning mother who
wishes me to invest SIS for her in the
Louisiana lottery. She had dream that
she would draw q prize and this would
enable her to give her only child first
class education. She is very poor, and
the letter was written with tears, but /
knew that she would lose thst money,
and 40 declined her request. The good
spirits don't send dreams that encourage
lotteries, aud bad spirits would make us
believe a lie.
There is a kind of gaming that never
gave me very deep concern. | mean
professional gaming where the parties all
have money and just swap it around
sometimes one has it and sometimes
another, and nobody suffers: Then there
is the gaming that is engaged in by the
sporting gentlemen, such as Cay and
Webster, and Breckinridge and Andrew
Jackson, never considered that q very
heinous sin. There are men who have o
passion for gambling. Some men will
throw dice or play crack-a loo all day for
the love of it. I have known men who
were so ford of betting on chance that if
they saw two birds sitting on o telegraph
wire they would make bet which bird
would fly away first.
But most of the sports like to mix skill
and judgment with chance. A mau will
bet on horse race, and in this way back
his judgment, and if he wins he feels good
in two ways-oIe over his judgment and
the other over his money. If he bets on
cards he has to do some brain work.
Mind and memory are exercised, and bis
success is q compliment to both, and. of
course, he is pleased with himself. Ifhe
does not succeed it is easy to lay it on
the cards. he never lays 1t On himself
It takes smart man to play cards. Dan
iel Webster and Clay and Aleck Stevens
were good players, and so are most OF our
notable statesmen. Zeb Vance, they say,
is >skillful performer, but Joe Brown
does not play good game. He is too
slow and deliberate. These great states
men never bet enough h to make anybody
rich or poor. I know gentlemen who
play for recreation and never stake more
than dime at a time. Isay gentlemen,
for they are gentlemen, and conduct
themselves honorably in all the relations
of life. They would scorn to cheat any.
body or to fleece a lamb. Some good,
old fashioned people have holy horror
of cards. That is all right. To him who
thinketh it sin, reckon it is sin.
Professor Proctor, the great astronomer
anal Christian gentleman was very fond
of cards. He said that :. game Of whist,
with cougenial friends, mas rest to his
mind. There is really no more harm in
playing cards for mental recreation than
in playing chess or draughts, or backgam-
mon or domiuoes. The schoolboy begins
With games as soon as he begins the al
phabet. He loves to take bis chances.
He spits on chip aud losses it up as lie
says, "Wet Or dry" He throws up o
piece of money and says "Heads Or
tais." Children draw straws for first
choice. All this is harmless. But when
the chance is desperate one and strains
the purse to take it the siu begins. II
encourages desire to get something for
nothing and that is the curse of this gen.
Grafton. The Louisiana lottery has inn
poverished thousands of young men and
kept many workiDgman poor. IT keeps
their secrets and their money and never
publishes their disappuintments. 1t is
very kind to them. 1t throws halo of
rainbow colors around the few who are
fortunate, ard this draws in new victims
and invites the old ones to return. This
lottery offers millions to the State for a
renewal of its charter, and they say it will
be renewed The old maxim that ''every
man has his price" will be realized. The
members of the Legislature are to be
bought The lottery runs the State and
the banks and the press, and some say,
the pulpit There would be no great
harm in this if the patrons of the lottery
could afford it, but they can't. They are
in a desperate condition or they would not
buck against such tiger. Rich folks
never take such chances.
The moral of all this is that the lottery
is q terrible drain upon the poor; that
Beauregard aud Early know it; that they
have sti1ed conscience and sold their
honor for money, and that louisiana is
fatteniDg upon this iuiquity.
Lotteries are mark of low civilization.
There is but one left in the United States
and lot long ago I read an interesting
letter from Brazil and it stated that al
most everything in that country was run
by lotteries. If the government got
cramped for money it set up lottery.
Roads and canals and churches and thea.
tres and public charities were all kept up
by lotteries. The people were a nation
of gamblers. For many years the French
government derived large income from
the government lotteries, but they have
been abolished and the very first year at.
ter their suppression the receipts in the
savings banks were increased million of
dollars.
Old England tolerated them for revenue
until 1923, when public sentiment abol-
ished them. Nearly every State in our
union has forbidden them. But what
good does that do, while Louisiana keeps
on draining her sister States of millions
of the poor mans money. Wanamaker
may prohibit lottery letters going through
the mails, but they will continue to go
through under cover of some other name.
The State may prohibit the sale of tickets
through agents, but the sale will 60 on as
long as the public press continues to blow
the lottery horn. The bare mention Of a
prize drawn in a town excites the popula-
tion and stimulates the sale of tickets to
an alarming extent. When the monthly
drawing is published at full length,
showing the large amounts drawn by the
fortunate few, it sets wild the ignorant
and the credulous. Half million dol
lars goes from Georgia to Louisiana
every year and nothing comes back to
speak of. The press denounces the effort