The Portland daily press., 1894-06-21

poses OF the philosopher it matters moth
ing whether we have to do with a syndi-
cate OF prosperous fnanciers, with some.
thing like million and quarter sterl-
ing behind them, or with a shoeblack,
who has saved up five shillings' worth
OF coppers to open bank with, and
offers to toss his mates for half pence on
the understanding that once in every 3a6
times it shall be "heads he wins, tails
they lose" Ii the world was governed
by right reason the offers of the shoe
black and strictly analogous proposal of
the syndicate would be rejected with
equal seorn. AS a matter of fact we
know that the inextinguishable race OF
"punters" fiocks in its thousands to
Monte Carlo to accept the terms of the
syndicate; and we have no doubt that
the shoeblack, if he held himself out as
ready to toss at all times with all and
sundry, and to go ION until his copper
bank was broken, would meet with
like success His "droit" would be as
willingly conceded to him in considera-
ton of the conveniences and facilities
with which he Internationally supplied
his public. Nay, it is probable enough
that he might put his terms much high
er without risk of their rejection. A
skilled mathematician published not
long ago what purported to be a mathe-
NAUTICAL demonstration of the fact that
the actual gains of the bank at Monte
Carlo were far in excess of what could
possibly result to it from its avowed and
conceded advantage; and the writer went
on to hint not obscurely that these ad
ditional profits must be earned by unfair
means. We are not aware that his ar
tlcle attracted any notice among the fire.
quenters of the tables, but we may be
pretty sure that it would not have dimin-
ished their number by SO much as a
ma
much stronger than mathematics as the
passion of cupidity is more potent than
the warnings of the reason.
How exceedingly Unmatched are
these TWO last influences a glance at the
world around us is sufficient to show.
We boast and in some particulars not
W Without plausibility. that we are more
amenable to reason and less swayed by
natural instincts and inherited supersti-
tions than were our forefathers. We
credit ourselves with greater self re-
straint than they possessed, and declare
that the advance of civilization has
weakened the effective force of many a
mans primitive impulses, while it has
brought others more fully under the
control of the intelligence Yet the spread
of popular education and of scholastic
discipline throughout large body of the
people hitherto untouched by these in
fuences has been attended by at least an
equally wide diffusion of the spirit and
the practice of gambling throughout
the entire community.
For one man who was in the habit of
betting upon horse races a generation
ago there are twenty who indulge in it
today. A form of gambling which in
the third q uarter of the present century
was pastime of !" the classes" has be-
come the common and almost everyday
excitement of the "the Masses" The
artisan, the shop boy. the domestic SER
want has become as close a student to
turf news, as habitual a speculator in
turf events, "as were ever the idle richn
of the early Victorian era. Indeed they
are even more SO, to the extent that the
immense modern development of the
sport of racing has multiplied oppor-
tunities for the qualification of the gam
bling propensity. The evidences of this
fact are too plain and too abundant to
be missed. 1t is brought home to one at
every moment by the very commonest
sights and sounds of the streets, by the
crowds that throng the pavements when
the RESULT of a race is being awaited, by
the cries of the evening newsboys at
every corner.
And, as is usual with us, we shut our
eyes and ears to these patent proofs of it's
existence, and devote all our energies
to dlscouraging it's obscurer TO rms. Our
legislature thinkers with the betting laws;
our police make raids upon petty gamb-
ling clubs; we hasten to suppress any
attempted imitation of the foreign lot
terry; and, having done this, we wrap
ourselves comfortably in our cloak of
hypocrisy, and thank heaven that we
are not as our Continental neighbors. 1t
is true that those who live by gam bling,
as opposed to those who die of it, do not
pool" their winnings like the directors
of the Casino of Monte Carlo, and no
one set of persons in this country are
able to point to net profit of over three
quarters of million derived from the
exploitation of a national vice. But it
would be well for us not to flatter our
selves too much on that account. After
all, the patrons of the great gaming
tables on the Riviera are, Comparatively
speaking, a small class; and, if it were
possible for US to collect all the innumer-
able rills of disaster and despair, of
shame and crime and madness, which
flow from the same source in this coun-
try, the aggregated result would, per-
haps, reduce even that vast reservoir of
ruin to insignifcance. -London Tele-
graph.