The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-12-18

perance and chastity; that make for do
mestic comfort and conjugal happiness.
Of all these vices gambling in its various
forms works the greatest evil, because,
while you may sober a drunkari or reform
a rake, il is almost impossible 10 reform
man who has once acquired the gambling
habit, which rather than alcohol is the
conspicuous vice Of the Pacific coast.
gambler who is not reformed, if he IS
stupid, surely becomes pauper, and
charge upon the community; while gam
oler who is naturally sharp, bright man
becomes a skin gambler; and skin gam
bier out Of luck is always presumptiye
thief or confidence man." finally, ne too,
| Ike the stupid gambler, becomes a charge,
because he becomes a convict. Society
therefore suffers whether the gambler is
an honest, reckless fool. who becomes
pauper; or is an acute knaye who becomes
a bird of prey; thief, social terror. and
finally when his career of active de5trnc-
tivenes brings him to prison he still re-
mains burden TO the state.
Nine-tenths of the young men who be-
decide to become thieves; for gambling,
like alcohol, ultimately makes molecular
change in the moral fiber of its votary and
rots out the sentiment of integrity and
honor in pecuniary trusts. 1t is no
answer to say that gamblers are not sell
dom square with each other; so are
thieves; that they are free-handed; so are
all bandits who get money by processes
that do not stand for toll. Gamblers are
like brokers on the door of the stock or
corn exchange who buy and sell thousands
without any written legal contract and
yet stand by their sales; they
have to or go out of business.
As matter of self interest. gamblers must
pay their bets or nobody would bet against
their bank; brokers must stand by their
sales or close the exchange and go back to
the slow process of sales guarded carefully
by written pledges. Law can not suppress
the gambling vice, but the law can easily
suppress notorious, open gambling places
where young boys and workin gmen can
crowd in and witness public gambling of
all sorts. Men who hive together and
gamble secretly, the law cannot easily
reach, but open, notorious gambling
houses that are traps to catch the young,
ignorant, unwary crowd, can be closed by
the police and kept closed.
The most effective education against
gambling is notice served by every bust
ness man to every employe that he may
expect his instant discharge if he CANDLES.
No business man can afford TO continue in
place of pecuniary trust man who
CANDLES. A man may become intemper-
ate and yet not necessarily unworthy of
pecuniary trust, but the gambling habit
from the start lays siege to the very base
of moral honor and integrity in matters of
pecuniary trust. The devil is always at
the elbow of the unlucky gambler urging
him to bet another's money to redeem his
own losses. and young fellow, who does
not appreciate the value of reputation
until it is lost, nine times out of ten Yields
to the pleadings of the busy, meddling
tiend at his elbow, wagers his employers
money, bets that he will win and recoup
his losses, loses his bet and from an un-
lucky gambler wakes up to find himself
thief.
Gambling is a mean vice which has its
root In the base, sordid, selfish, cold
blooded, greedy, grasping side of human
nature. Even an honest gambler, to sue
coed at all, must suppress the best side of
human nature, while a dishonest gambler
is dehumanized creature, the meanest
kind of a cowardly thief, by the side of
whom highwayman who holds you up,
or craftsman who bursts your safe is
manly character. Of course, every profess
sional gambler would become a profess
sional thief if he did not know that it is
more dangerous under law to pick your
pocket than it is to rob you by fraud at
cards or dice. Gambling like prostitution,
is born of avarice and Incidence, and is the
parent of theft.