The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-01-17

suits growing out of it. Men who engage
in gambling frequently insist that there is
little or no difference between gaming and
much that goes under the name of business,
and with that specious sophistry some of
our young men seek to hush the cries of
conscience. A young friend said the other
day: You go to an establishment where
gambling is going on; you see there pos
sibility to make money: the chances may
not be quite as many in your favor as those
in favor of the establishment conducting
the business, but you nevertheless
see there is a chance and SUCH
as it is you take it. Sometimes you win
and sometimes you lose; you take the risk
of that. II you win you are prosperous
and if you lose you have but done what
thousands do monthly in business-you
fail. The man engaged in business looks
over the ground of his contemplated enter
prise; he observes the favorable and I'M
favorable probabilities, and finally acts.
He takes his chances just as the gambler
does; sometimes he is successful, some
times he fails; and in his success or his
failure the same results follow as when
the gambler succeeds or fails. AS much
poverty and Indebtedness to family and
dependent friends or relatives follow a
business failure as attend 'tgoing broke" in
gaming; as many men sink into despair
and commit suicide through business fail
ures as through losing at the gambling
tables. Now, what is the difference, and
why is not one just as honorable and
moral as the other"
In the first place our answer is that in
business men engage generally in the legit-
innate affairs of life, in something that pro-
duces commodities, or that distributes them.
and affects in some way or other produc-
ton, trade or commerce; and whilst risks
are nearly always connected in business
ventures they are usually such as may be
weighed by the judgment and provisions
made against them by caution, industry
and attention. 80 that business is not
purely an affair of chance. On the con-
trary its results may usually be anticipated
with great eXactness, and 1t affects the in
dustrial and commercial world favorably.
Nothing of this is true in respect to gam
ding. 1t deals in nothing that affects fav-
orably the legitimate affairs of life. 1t pro-
duces nothing; it moves nothing; it does
not influence for good the Industrial
world. 1t is either a matter purely of
chance against which no Judgment, indus
try or caution can do anything, or it is a
gigantic swindle. which exists to the detri-
ment and great danger of the
simple minded. 1t is needless to
say that we are of the opinion
that it Is usually a swindling
scheme TO catch the unwary; for the games
are so arranged that the chances are three
and four to one, and sometimes ten TO one,
in favor of those conducting them. 1t is a
matter altogether outside of the Legitimate
affairs of life. til not an industry by any
means, but an arbitrary scheme of chance
created to benefit desperate element in
society to the injury of the simple.
Our friend is wrong also when he states
that as many men sink into despair and
commit suicide through business failures
as through losses at the gaming tables
Take into account the NUMBER of men en-
gagged in business life and the suicides that
result from complications and failures, and
compare them with the percentage OF
suicides among gamblers, and we do not
hesitate TO say that the former will be
found insignificant in comparison with the
latter. This must be so from the very
nature of things. The man who fails in
| business, unless that failure results from
dishonesty, has his character left, his
reputation, his business experience and
may hope to rebuild the fortunes which
disaster threw down. But the gambler
who fails has nothing of this to sup
port him. He is conscious he has
no respectable standing in society. The
known gambler is everywhere distrusted
and is a marked man in society and bust
ness circles. His pursuit of gambling has
robbed him of all inclinations to homes,
endeavor that calls for toll or careful
pains-taking; he feels himself united fol-
the stern affairs of life; the strumpet
Chance, has gone against him; nothing is
left him, and he throws away his life. A
Monte Carlo it is estimated that there is
suicide for every day of the gambling sea
son. There gambling reaches its highes
refinement, and it is supposed to be con
Quoted on the fairest principles of the art
or profession, of gambling; yet this is tn,
result But not all the result, for, a
stated in an exchange, wealth is draw
hither from the uttermost parts of tn
earth, and sacrificed, along with characte
and good name. and, too often, with lif
itself, for the benefit of shrewd, fatten
ing horde of private spectators. The pro
prietors, meanwhile, netting several mill
ions of dollars year in dividends
10 10 no IF he
lions of Europe, that none of them afte
: the present lease of the establishment q
Monte Carlo expires-will have Mont
Carlo. Since there is no prospect of get
ting a renewal of the charter in Europe,
Connecticut company has concluded to es
tablish similar institution, but on NOR
magnificent scale, in Algiers, Africa, tina
shall succeed the fashionable establishment
in France. What does this Punishment G
the institution at Monte Csrlo mean2 Whs
is its significance! Why, that the enligh
ened Judgment Of Europe is that gambling
even in the very height of It's refinemen
I in its least Objectionable form, is bad thin.
an immoral, a scandalous thing that car
not be tolerated in civilized, to say nothin
q of Christian, nations; hence, it is to h
8 banished to the Dark continent. Som,
+, thing is due to the enlightened sentiment {
mankind on question of moral
especially when that sentiment ia base
upon an extensive experience, as it is i
the verdict against gambling. If this is il
verdict in its most respectable phases, hor
d much more just is that verdict when al
= piled to our common dives, SO frequentl
: run under the name of club-rooms, whel
o outright trickery and fraud are practice,
e and the unwary robbeda