The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1897-04-16
the Insiduous Power of Gambling.

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A stranger who has heard in the out
side world so much said against the race
track gambling which is carried on in
Elkton and vicinity, is forcibly struck
with the mild censure the criminal
business receives from the citizens-or at
least from large numbers of meanwhile
many speak out plainly on the side OF the
gamblers. Those who hold that they
condemn the business on general prin-
ciples, will qualify the mild censure by
their testimony to the quiet and gentle
manly department of the gamblers. They
are rarely guilty of anything like vulgar
rowdyisIn, but on the contrary are we'll
dressed, quiet and deport themselves in a
we'll bred, orderly manner. But few
fights occur which are not traceable to
the lower class who follow the race track,
and are disowned and repudiated by the
nice, elite gentry who control the bus
mess. The towns people say the race
people are very liberal, spend money
freely and are pecuniary advantage to
the business of the town.
The remarkable fact crops out in all
this palliative relation of citizen to gam
bier, that the former looks only at the
surface and sees no deeper. The deadly
moral miasma which rises from the pres
ence of these we'll dressed and cultured
hammered gentlemen, to the average cit
izen is entirely invisible. They even
reiterate the ISLANDERS of the sporting
gentry against Anthony Comstock which
their apologists and paid newspapers have
given currency to, never dreaming even
of the deadly poison which the race track
gambling is spreading. The passion for
gambling is as contagious, and when it
has fastened itself on its victim, is as diff
fcult to escape from, as the alcoholic
disease Hundreds of young men and
men not so young, who have caught the
gambling fever have gone to the peniten
tiary for the crime of ENLIGHTENMENT, and
doubtless thousands equally guilty have
escaped and are leading life of constant
fear lest the avenger that is always on
their track may at any moment overtake
them. Forty thousand dollars were taken
in at the Fair ground race track in one
"meet," and almost every dollar, per-
haps, had been virtually stolen and
reached the pool box by either first or
second hands. The infection is spreading
in the county among the young men,
and in all probability will lead some in
the end to the penitentiary. 1t is not an
uncommon thing to hear people say that
the feeding of so many horses makes a
good market for hay and grain and tacitly
agree that on the whole the race tracks
are not bad thing.
Those who have made careful study
of the business have reached the convic-
ton that race track gambling is the worst
of all vices because it gathers all others
around it, and silently spreads moral
leprosy through the community where it
exists whose effect fingers long after the
cause has been removed by driving out
the gamblers.
A twenty-six days of racing will soon
begin if it has not already commenced on
the Elkton Fair track, which if as sue
cessful as the last, $4,000 will be cast
into this sulphurous pool, the greater part
of which will have been stolen from
banks, mercantile houses and business
6r,,,e h., fructed en,DloveS who have hRaIl
poisoned by the race track and other
species of gambling. The most of this
money, if it could be followed back to the
starting point in its course of crime
would no doubt be found i'll the hand Of
thieves who had distracted it from some
employers till.
These gamblers paid $1,000 to the Fail
management for the use of the ground:
for twenty-six days. That rent ant
$,7, 900 more, if as successful as theil
former meet" will have to be piratet
out of honest earnings somewhere, ant
not little will be extracted from thi:
county. Converting an agricultural fail
ground into such den of thieves by the
Fair managers is on par with ship:
crew mutinying and turning the ship into
a pirate to sail and rob on the high seas
The act of this Cecil County Agricultural
management is not one whit better than
or different from, such a piratical venture