Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1895-03-28

When young people go out into the
world the pack of cards greets them.
Some can play and some cannot. Those
who cannot are expected to learn. They
are laughed at If they don't. So in most
cases they learn, for they don't like to be
laughed at, and it is hard to find an argu
ment that will weigh much with the
three card-players who are trying to
make up the requisite four for given
game.
1t is a custom Gas old as the hills"
Most of the chest families" play. A few
ministers justify it; more of them "see
no special harm in it," A large number
wink at it and ''let it CO." They don't
want to be disliked by the young folks
or pronounced cold fogies." After all,
"young folks will be young folks" And
SO it happens that the young people,
whose parents feel keenly on the subject
| from the memory of a ruined brother, a
tempted father, a wretched wife,, are ex
posed to the temptation.
If people go into society, how can they
help meeting the temptation? Society
everyw here plays cards-an that, we
eoncede, with the acquiescence of some
respectable people in the church, the APP
prevail of many nice people out of the
church. and the emphatic endorsement
of weak people and wicked people every
/ where, to whom the church is nothing but
a body of hypoerites, Pharisees or fanatics.
The young fellow with dews of mothers
love upon him is swept in by society,"
possibly passes through unframed, or
possibly, as in thousands of cases, is
caught in the rapids, hurled over the
falls, and swept into the awful gulf be-
low. But then society laughs at the
"fool,' and says that "greenhorns and
piously reared fellows are always in dam
GER
The institution remains. In private
parIor, in hotel drawing room, i'll shop,
in bedroom, i'll gilded saloon, in club
room, in palace car, on ocean steamer, in
gorgeous gambling he'll, in military and
mining camps, by day and by night, in
summer and in winter, year in and year
out, in every land, on every shore, the
great institution carries on its work.
How innocent looking are these little
bits of stiff paper! They are indeed and
yet they represent variety of games
which a-e unified in the. well-known
card liable" which is supported by
avarice, by infatuation and by fashion.
First. fashion in society; then fascination
worse than that Of the serpent's eye; then
furious fever, that neither love, nor
reason, nor conscience, can allay
As our youth enter the city belt line
OF fire eneircles them. Dramshops, fitted
up with polished mirrors, cut glasses,
carved and highly polished woods. cleo
trio lights, and walls draped and decor
ated with works OF art, all bid for our
young men. Surrounding these broker
age shops of hell are dives, brothels and
low playhouses. From the walls of
saloon, dive, and brothel hang pictures
where woman's fair form is denuded, and
womanheod is degraded. Bill-boards,
fences and walls of buildings serve as
finger boards to point our youth to
places where the atmosphere Is fetld, and
where young women are employed to
divest themselves of their modest wom-
anly apparel and dispert themselves in
shameless attire and in shameless manner
for the entertainment OF patrons of opera,
theatre, and low playhouses.
The card table is one OF the surest pass
ports to all OF these things. The fact is
that the path to the innermost hell of
ambling is through the clover bloom Of
fashionable card-playing. The victims
in the gambling dens to-day were once
votares in the parlors of fashion, where
no Cor only nominal stakes were set up,
f and where people We're bent on nothing
/ but ''fun," or ''to pass the time, =" or ''to
/ be in style"
The card-ta BILE has no good and much
evil In it's most innocent forms it is
only the pieket-line of a great and an
evil army. 1t is like the wine cup. There
is no argument against the one that does
not hold against the other And but for
the love of fashion, the fear of society,
and the lack of taste for intellectual and
spiritual occupations, no Christian
would think of patronizing or defending
the card-table.
,. 1t leads to gambling.
Character is what we are; reputation,
what people say of us. The devil is a
character wrecker; we are character
builders. He gets in his finest work in
infancy and youth, and many man, like
the psalmist of old, has been forced to
cry in after years, "Remember not the
sins of my youth, nor my transgressions.'
One of the most pat hetic walls that ever
fell from mortal lips, fell from the lips OF
gifted man, a victim Of wild oats sown
in youthful days, who, in his remorse and
despair, said: "I'm in far country
where God is not"
Zone rainy day." says Anthony Com
stock, "while riding in the front end OF a
railroad car, sat musing over the rain
drops as they struck upon the front
window and then ran down. Those at
tho tor aaamad at first q lmOst stationary