The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1891-03-06

dAgratlOn, ana Spr1nkleS from the Dap
tisrnal font of our churches, and with
silver note, and golden sparkle, and
crystalline chime, says to hundreds of
thousands of our population, in the au-
thentic words of Him who said: 81 viii;
be thou cIeanl''
All this / premise in opening this
course of sermons on the Ten Plaques
of these three cities lest some stupid
man might say am depreciating the
place of my residence. i speak to you
to-day concerning the plague of gam
bling. Every man and woman in this
house ought to be interested in this
theme.
Some years ago, when an association
organized, an agent of the associa-
ton came to a prominent citizen and
asked him to patronize the society. He
said: mo, 1 can have no interest
in such an organization. / am
in nowise affected by that evil. :"
At that very time his son, who
was his partner in business, was one of
the heaviest players in Hearne's famous
gaming establishment. Another refused
his patronage on the same ground, not
knowing that his first book-keeper
though receiving a salary of only thou
sand dollars, was losing from fifty to
one hundred dollars per night. The
president of a railroad company refused
to patronize the institutions, saying:
''That society is good for the defense of
merchants, but we railroad people are
not injured by this evil;' not knowing
that, at that very time, two of his con-
ductors were spending three nights of
each week at faro tables in New York
Directly or Indirectly this evil strikes at
the whole world.
Gambling is the rislxing of something
more or less valuable in the hope of
winning more than you hazard. The
instruments of gaming may differ, but
the principle is the same. The shut
fling and dealing cards, however, full of
temptation, is not gaming, unless stakes
are put up; while, on the other hand,
gambling may be carried on without
cards or dice, or billiards or a ten-pin
alley. The man who bets on horses, on
elections, ON battles-the man who
deals in fancy" stocks, or conducts n
business which hazards extra capital,
or goes into transactions without foun-
dation, but dependent upon what men
call luck" is gambler, whatever
you expect to get from your neigh
Dor without offering an equivalent
in money or time or skill, is either
the product of theft or gaming. Lottery
tickets and lottery policies come into
the same category. Fairs for the
i1c IF fa1c I'd
churches, conducted on the rafting
system, come under the same denomi-
nation. Do not, therefore, associate
gambling necessarily with any instru-
ment, or game, or time or place, or
think the principle depends upon
whether you pay for glass of wine or
one hundred shares of railroad stock
Whether you patronize auction pools, 4"
French mutuals" or "book-mal1ing, -
whether you employ faro or billiards,
rondo or keno, cards or bagatelle, the
very idea of the thing is dishonest; for
it processes to bestow upon you a good
for which you give-no equivalent.
1t is estimated that every day in
Christendom thirty million dollars pass
from hand to hand through gambling
dom one hundred and twenty-three
billion one hundred million dollars
change hands in that way. There are
in this cluster of cities about eight hun
dred confessed gambling establish
ments. There are about thirty-five
thousand professional gamblers. Out
of the eight hundred gambling estab-
lishments, how many of them do you
suppose profess to be honest? Ten.
These ten protesting to be honest be-
cause they are merely the ante-chamber
to the seven hundred and ninety that are
acknowledged fraudulent. There are
first-class gambling establishments.
You go up the marble stairs. You ring
the bell. The liveried servant intro
duces you. The walls are lavender
tinted. The mantels are of Vermont
marble. The pictures are "Jephthah's
Daughter" and Dore's dante and Vir-
gil's Frozen Region of He'll" most APP
propriate selection, this last, for the
place. There is the roulette table, the
finest, the costliest, most exquisite
piece of furniture in the United States.
There is the banqueting room, where,
free of charge to the guests, you may
find the plate, and viands, and wines,
and cigars, sumptuous beyond parallel.
Then you come to the second-class
gambling establishment. To it you are
introduced by card through some
''roper-in." Having entered, you must
either gamble or fight. Sanded cards,
dice loaded with quicksilver, poor
drinks, will soon help you to get rid
of all your money to a tune in short
meter with staccato passages. You
wanted to see. You saw. The low
villains of that place watch you as you
come in. Does not the panther, squat
in the grass, know a calf when he
sees it? Wrangle not for your rights
in that place, or your body will be
thrown bloody into the steeet, or
dead into the East river. You go along
little further and find the policy es-
tablishment. In that place you bet on
numbers. Betting on two numbers o
called "saddle;" betting on three num-
bers is called gig" betting on four
numbers is called ''horse," and there
are thousands of our young men leap
ing into that Saddle" and mounting
that "gig," and behind that horse"
riding to perdition. There is always
one kind of sign on the door-"Ex-
change" a most appropriate title for
the door, for there, in that room, a man
exchanges health, peace and Heaven,
for loss of health, loss of home, loss of
family, loss of immortal soul. Exchange
sure enough and infinite enough:
Men wishing to gamble will find places