Connecticut western news., 1891-02-25

Shall l sketch the history of the gambler! Lured by bad company he finds his way into a place where honest men ought never 10 go. He sits down to his first game, but only for pastime and the desire of being thought sociable The players deal out the cards. They unconsciously play into satan's hands, who takes all the tricks and both the players souls for trumps-he being a sharper at any game. A slight stake is put up just to add interest to the play. Game after game is played. Larger stakes and still larger. They begin to move nervously on their chairs Their brows lower and eyes flash, until now they who win and they who lose, fired alike with passion, sit with set jaws and compressed lips and clinched fists, and eyes like fire balls that seem starting from their sockets, to see the final turn before it comes; if losing, pale with envy and tremulous with unuttered oaths cast back -ed hot upon the heart --or, winning, with hysteric laugh Hal hal have itl have itI"
 A few years have passed and he is only the wreck of man. Seating himself at the game ere he throws the first card, he stakes the last relic of his wife and the marriage ring which sealed the solemn VOWS between them. The game is lost, and staggering back in exhaustion he dreams. The bright hours of the past mock his agony, and in his dreams fiends with eyes of fire and tongue of flame circle about him with joined hands to dance and sing their orgies with hellish chorus chant ing Hail! brotherl" kissing his clammy forehead until their loathsone locks, flowing with serpents, crawl into his bosom and sink their sharp fangs and suck up his life's blood, and coiling around his heart pinch it with chills and shudders unutterable.
 . TAKE WARNING.
 Take warningl You are no stronger than tens of thousands who have by this practice been overthrown. No young man in our cities can escape being tempted. Beware of the first be- ginningsl This road is a down grade, and every instant increases the momen- tum. Launch not upon this treacher- ous sea. Split hulks strew the beach, Everlasting storms howl up and down, tossing unwary craft into the Hellgate. speak of what have seen with my own eyes. have looked off into the abyss, and have seen the foaming, and the hissing, and the whirling of the horrid deep in which the mangled vic tims writhed, one upon another, and struggled, strangled, blasphemed and died-the death stare of eternal dee- pair upon their countenances as the waters gurgled over them.
 To gamblers death bed there comes no hope. He will probably die alone. His former associates come not nigh his dwelling. When the hour comes his miserable soul will go out of mis- erable life into a miserable eternity. As his poor remains pass the house where he was ruined, old companions may look out moment and say, ''There goes the old carcass-dead at last, but they will not get up from the table Let him down now into his grave. Plant no tree to cast its shade there, for the long, deep, eternal gloom that settles there is shadow enough. Plant no 'forget-me-nots" or eglan- tines around the spot, for flowers were not made to grow on such a blasted heath. Visit it not in the sunshine, for that would be mockery, but in the dis nal night when no stars are out and the spirits of darkness come down horsed on the wind, then visit the grave of the gambler!