The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.) 1884-1944, 1891-03-11

family, loss of immortal soul Ex
change sure enough ndinfinite enough.
Men Wishing to gamble will find
places suite. 10 their capacity, not only
in the underground oyster cellar, or o.
the table back of the curtain covered
with greasy cards, o. n the
steamboat smoking cabin where
the bloated wretch with rings
in his ears instead of his nose,
deals the pack, and winks in the uns.is'
pecting traveler-providing free drinks
all around-but in gilded parlors spd
amid gorgeous surrounding.
A young man, having suddenly heired
a large property, sits at the hazard Ia
BILE and takes up in dice box the es-
tate won by fathers lifetime sweat
and shakes it, and losses it away. In
temperance soon stigmatizes its victim,
kicking him out, a slavering fool, into
the ditch, or sending him, with the
drunkard's hiccough, staggering up the
street where his family lives. But gam
bling does not in that way expose its
victims. The gambler may be eaten UP
by the gamblers passion, yet you only
discover it by the greed in his eyes, the
hardness of his features, the nervous
restlessness, the threadbare coat and
his embarrassed business. Yet he is on
the road to hell, and no preacher S voice
or startling warning or wife's entreaty,
can make him stay for moment his
headlong career. The internal spell ID
on him; a giant is aroused within; and
though you bind him with cables, they
would part like thread; and though you
fasten him seven times round
with chains, they would snap like
rusted wire; and though you piled up in
his path heaven high Bibles, tracts and
sermons, and on top should set the
cross of God, over them all the gam
bier would leap, like roe over the
rocks, on his way to perdition.
This crime is getting its lever under
m any mercantile house in our great
cities, and before long down will come
the great establishment, crushing repu-
tation home, comfort and immortal
souls. How it diverts and sinks capital
may be inferred from some anthenticat-
ed statement before us. The ten gam
ing houses that once were authorized in
Paris passed through the banks, yearly,
three hundred and twenty-five millions
of francs. Where does all that money
come from? The whole world is robbed!
What is most sad, there are no consola-
tons for the loss and suffering entailed
by gaming. If men fail in lawful
business, God pities and society COM
misserates; but where in the Bible or
in society is there any consolation for
the gambler? From what tree Of tho
forest oozes there balm that can
soothe gamester's heart? In that
bottle where God keeps the tears Of his
children are there any tears of the gam
bier? Do the winds that come to kiss
the faded cheek of sickness, and to cool
the heated brow of the laborer, whisper
hope and cheer to the emaciated victim
of the game of hazard? When an hon.
est man is in trouble he has sympathy.
"Poor fellow!" they say. But do gam
blers come to weep at the agonies Of
the gambler?
Furthermore, this sin is the source of
uncounted dishonesties. The game of
hazard itself is often game of cheat.
How many tricks and receptions in the
dealing of the cards! The opponents
hand is ofttimes found out by fraud.
Cards are marked SO that they may be
designated from the back. Expert
gamesters have their accomplices, and
one wink may decide the game. The
dice have been found loaded with pla-
tina, so that "doublets'' come up
every time. These dicc are intro
duced by the gamblers, unobserved
by honest men who have come into
the play; and this accounts for the
fact that ninety-nine out of a hun
dred who gamble, however wealthy
they began, and at the end are found
to be poor, miserable, ragged wretches,
that would not be allowed to sit on the
doorstep of the house they once owned.
In a gambling house in San Francisco
young man having just come from the
mines deposited large sum upon the
ace, and won twenty-five thousand dol
lars. But the tide turns Intense ex-
citement comes upon the ct,untenance of
all. Slowly the cards went forth.
Every eye is fixed. Not sound is heard
until the ace is revealed favorably to
the bank. There are shouts of "Foulv'
"Fonlp' but the keepers of the table
produce their pistols, and the uproar 10
silenced and the bank has won ninety
five thousand dollars. Do you call this
game of chance? There is no chance
about it.
But these dishonesties in the carrying
on of the game are nothing when COM
pared with the frauds which are com
mitted in order to get money to carry
on their nefarious work. Gambling
with its greedy hand has snatched away
the widows mite and the portion of the
orphans; has sold the daughters virtue
to get the means to continue the game;
has written counterfeit signature,
emptied the bankers money vault and
welded the assassin's dagger There
is no depth of meanness to which it will
not stoop. There is no cruelty at which
it is appalled,. There is no warning OF
God that it will not dare. Merciless,
unappeasable, fiercer and wilder il
blinds, it hardens, it rends, it blasts, II
brushes, it damns. 1t has peopled our
prisons and lunatic asylums. How
many railroad agents and cashiers and
trustees of funds it has driven to dis.
grace, incarceration and suicide! Wit.
ness wears AGO n cashier of a RAILROAD