Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1890-09-18
there Is not so Much Of It-Ignor
ance Causes ExaggeratiOn,
knowledge Provokes
Lying.

personal anecuOte, he 1llIC les IndJ MS IOT-
tune is made, md neithe, thinks nor cares
to discriminate In the matter of accuracy
or propriety. That there are degrees in
card playing, or Var,lng senslbllltles
among those who with differing aims play
at cards. or any virtue in sticking to the
truth, doef not occur to him, and as In
this, like other fairy tales, it is as easy to
speak of millions as of pennies, the
amounts at issue are on y linmited by the
imagination of the recoudtant. Thus !:
The colonel went him 81 ,000 and the
Judge raised him S.. 200 better, and the
colonel called, and the judge only had a
pair of deuces, and''-when, if the there
was any such passage at all, the figures
might be reduced to mills-still largely to
exceed the amounts actually at stake.
Again, the writers of these gaming
stories seldom have any knowledge of the
subject, and, writing at second hand, fall
into the most egregious errors; and their
readers. bling for the most part equally
ignorant. form the most fantastic notions
of gambling and of the gambler, both pro-
fessional and amateur.
HARD TO LIVE DOWN.
The reputation Of gambling long sur
wives the abandonment of the habit of
gambling. 1t is not generally known
though it, is fact, that the most famous
of the non professional gamblers of his
tory, Charles James Fox, did not play for
money after his 43d year, devoting the most
of his life to the most useful, eminent and
brilliant public service, but never eradi-
eating his early reputation. Indeed, it
can be sat down as rule that nothing
does its work so quickly and so surely as
high play.
He who persists in it, no matter how
deep his pocket, will soon find the bot
tom of it. for the essential principle of
gambling is that it shall reach at least the
measure of the player capacity to lose.
In most cases it exceeds this and III all,
where is is continued, it outlasts the ca
pacity to pay. involving debt and ruin.
Where these are not the fnalities among
amateurs and men claiming to be gentle
mt L, the abatement is to be found In an
ever-increasing conservatism. narrowing
down to merely nominal stakes or counters.
and this is the history of every game that
does not end in more or less hare ship and
disgrace
OF professional gambling it can be said
that no avocatIon IN golves so much of des-
potism, fckleness and squaior. Rare, in
deed, are the instances where the profess
sional gambler would not be glad to lead
a different life. He will tell you, and
truely, that he was not born a gambler,
that he did not take to gambling for its
own lake, that he drifted into it, as it
were, sometimes by mischance in business.
sometimes through the encroachments of
half unconscious dissipation, and some
times from sheer Incidence and love of
easy and ard idle pleasure. A murrain
ont! The capacity for real and steady
work diminished or gone, the means of
recuperation squandered, confidence for
feited and reputation furnished. what was
left? Nothing but the card table no long
er a magic circle Of diversion and abandon
ment, but the grimy, back breaking actual
ity of defeated life, indefinite, endless,
without any beginnings, or objective
points, or ambitions that are not vul gar,
venal and corrupt, or victories that
are not brutal and base
REFORM IS EASY.
Yet. of all the vices, none is so easy of
amendment, and none shows so many illus
trations of reform. In the great cities
most men have taken to some form of
gambling; few who have not either thrown
it off or brought it under regulation and
control. Gaming is largely habit, and a
habit of association. 1t does not, like so
many vices, communicate directly any
poison to the blood, though too often | laid
ing to those that do. In its origin it is
not without all ages and among all class
es 1t has had an existence But at the
very best it is open to the gravest objec-
tions.
It is too absorbing, OBTAINING player
beyond their time, and often from the
most honorable motives. 1t is too con-
fning, lacking the pure air and light of
day, and permeated by the fetid by the
atmosphere of midnight and tobacco;
where it does not descend into the health
destroying fumes of drink. 1t completely
deadens the money-sense, and, In fact, the
sense of all values; and where carried to
the least excess, is a moral crime in ex
acting something for nothing. | will not
add that it is provocative of a great talent
for domestic lying, and an incalculable
amount of it. because it may be doubted
whether the loving wife who listens with
moist eyes to the sad story of the sick
friend is deceived as much and as often as
she pretends to be- Assuredly not in Ken
lucky, where be sure The women of two or
three generations have not lived wholly in
vain, and where, In every case, 1t would
be well for the recreant husband to pay no
heed to the counsel of the Kentucky jour
nalist, of whom tradition relates that, on
certain occasion he observed 10 the friend
with whom he was about to separate at
the street corner which divided their re-
spective homes: 81 have always made it
a rule. Isaac, to go to my wife and tell
her the truth; it is much the best way, be
lieve me; and so, as soon as l get IN, L
mean TO put bold face on it and frankly
say that the press broke down.
SOME ANECDOTES.
Fictions like these, however ingenious
and maintained. have no power to mislead
such ladies as The astute Bluegrass ma
tron. who. after allowing her husband to
disrobe in fancied security, and to sit rock
ing the cradle On the edge of the bed IN
Ill nearly frozen by this cunning attempt
at deception, at last exclaimed: sob,
come on to bed. the baty ain in that era
de-
When old Suggs. the father of the IL
lustrious Simon. having discovered that
young hopeful playing cards. undertook 70
impress the boy with the idea that gambl-
ing is a waste of time and money. the
embryo captain of The Tailapoosa volnn-
teers asked with more pertinency than
depth of thought; We'll. whar does the
money 90, daddy, that every body looses?"
In spite of the inability Of the elder Mr.
Suggs to answer this inquiry, he builded
wiser than he knew and was in the main
right in his original proposition.
Tho ,,,opov Loot ana xu0p of nar6c Ic 61o-