Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-10-11
VICE OF GAMBLING.
HENRY wATTERsoN WRITES OF HIGH
STAKES AND BIG LOSSES.
There is Not So Much of It-Ignorance
Causes Exaggeration, knowledge
Provokes Lying.

Henry Watterson has been writing to hi
newspaper, the Louisville Courier-Jour1sal
, about gambling, and here are some of thu
reflections which the grave of Chunky
: Towles inspired in the brain of the distin
guished Kentucky editor: OF all methods
of livelihood or dissipation or amusement
perhaps there is none about which so much
untruth passes current as about gambling
Every now and then the newspapers take
to run of gaming stories, and it is the
exception when one of these has the leas
: element of fact to sustain it. To the minc
of certain crude reportorial youth. II
whose eyes the race-course is paradise
} and every turfman a hero, all games O
chance possess peculiar fascination. and
if he can fasten to game of hearsay some
individual, particular or personal anec-
lote, he fancies that his fortune is made
and neither thinks nor cares to discrimi-
nate in the matter o. accuracy or propri-
ETY.. That there are degrees in card play
ing, or varying sensibilities among those
who with differing aims play at cards, or
any virtue in sticking to the truth, does
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 only
limited by the imagination of the recount
| ant. Thus: "The Colonel went him 81 900,
and the Judge raised him $4,000 better,
and the Colonel called, and the Judge
only had pair of duces and'-when, if
| there was any such passage at all, the fig
ures might be reduced to mills = still
largely to exceed the amounts actually at
| stake.
Again, the writers of these gaming
stories sci ION have any knowledge of the
subject, and, writing at second hand, fall
| into the most egregious errors; and their
readers, being for the most part equally
| ignorant, form the most fantastic notions
of gambling and of the gambler, both
professionally and amateur.
The reputation for 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 professional gamblers of history,
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
eradicating his early reputation. Indeed,
it can be set 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 bottom of it, for the essential principal
of gambling is that it shall reach at least
the measure of the players capacity to
| lose. In most cases it exceeds this and in
| all, where it is continued, it outlasts the
capacity to pay, involving debt and ruin.
| When these are not the fnalities among
| amateurs and men claiming to be gentle
men, 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 of hardship
| and disgrace.
OF professional gambling it can be said
| that no avocation involves so much of
despotism, fckleness and squalor Rare,
| indeed, are the instances where the pro-
fessional gambler would not be glad to
lead different life. He will tell you,
| and truly, that he was not a born gambler
that he did not take to gambling for its
own sake, 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 aud, love of
easy and idle pleasure A murrain ont |!
The capacity for real and steady work
diminished or gone, the means of recupera-
ton squandered, confidence forfeited and
reputation furnished, what was left =?
4 L,,4 L. toL1
magic circle of diversion and abandon
ment, but the grimy, back-breaking actu-
ality Of defeated life, indefinite, endless,
without any beginnings Or objective points
or ambitions that are not vulgar, venal
and corrupt, or victories that are not brutal
| and base.
Yet. of all the vices, none is SO easy of
amendment, as none shows SO many illus
trations of reform. In the great cities
most men have taken a turn at some form
of gambling; few who have not either
thrown it off or brought it under regula-
ton and control. Gaming is largely a
habit, and habit of association. 1t does
not, like so many other vices, commune
cate directly any poison to the blood,
though too often leading to those that do
In its origin it is not without certain
manhood and humor, and hence in all ages
and among all classes it has had an exist
ence. But at the very best it is open to
the gravest objections.
1t is 100 absorbing, OBTAINING players be-
yond their time, and often from the most
honorable motives. 1t is too combining.
lacking the pure air and light of day, and
permeated by the fetid atmosphere of mid
night and tobacco, where it does not de-
scend into the misunderstanding 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 q
moral crime in exacting something for
nothing. | will not add that it is provoca-
tive 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 ard as often as she pretends to be.
Assuredly not in Kentucky, where be sure
the women Of two or three generations
have not lived wholly in vain, and where,
in every case, it would be we'll for the
recusant husband to pay no heed to the
counsel Of the Kentucky journalist, OF
whom tradition relates that, on certain
occasion he observed to the friend with
whom he was about to separate at the
street corner which divided their respect.
i've homes: II have always made it rule,
Isaac, to go to my wife and tell her the
truth. 1t is much the best way, believe
me; and so, as soon as ! get in, mean tc
put a bold face upon it and frankly say
that the press broke down."
Fictions like these, however ingenious
and maintained, have no power to mislead
such ladies as the astute Bluegrass matron,
who, after allowing her husband to dis.
robe in fancied security, and to sit rocking
the cradle on the edge of the bed until
nearly frozen by this cunning attempt at
, deception, at last exclaimed: ooh, come
. !. to he'd the hahz aia,t il, that cradlai,,