The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-08-06

And they have How to get the extra
$500 or the extra e, 900 Is the question.
He says: Here is my friend who start
ed out the other day with but little
money. and In one night, 81 great was
his luck. lie rolled up hundreds and
thousands OF dollars. IL he got 1t. why
not I? 1t is such dull work. this adding
up OF long lines OF figures in the CUNT
ing house. this pulling down OF q hum
dred yards Of goods and selling q REM
nant. this always waiting upon
body else when / could put 500 on the
ace n pick up $1,000"
AN INsIDIOUs SIN.
This sin works very in~sidiously.
Other sins sound the drum, and f!aunt
the flag. and gather their recruits with
wild huzza, but this marches its pro-
cession Of pale victims in dead Of night,
in silence, and when they drop into the
grave there is not so much u as the
click Of dice. Oh. how many have
gone down under it. Look at hose men
who were once highly prospered. Now
their forehead is licked by a tongue of
flame hat will never go out. In their
souls are plunged the beaks which will
never be lifted Swing open the door of
that mans heart and you see a coil of
adders wriggling their indescribable
horror until you turn away and hide
your face and ask God TO help you to
forget it. The most of this evil is un-
advertised. The community does not
lear of it. Men defrauded in gaming
establishments are not fools enough to
tell of ii. Once in awhile, however,
there is an exposure, as when in Boston
the police swooped upon a gaming es-
Enlistment and found in it the repre-
sentatives of all classes of citizens.
from the first merchants on State
street to the low Ann street gambler;
as when Bullock, the cashier of the
Central Railroad of Georgia, was found
to have stolen S103, 900 for the purpose
of carrying on gaming practices; as
when a young man in one of the saw
ings banks of Brooklyn many years
ago was found to have stolen $40, 900 to
carry on gaming practices; as when a
man connected with a Wall street in
surance company was oun to have
stolen $108, 900 to carry On his gaming
practices. But that is exceptional.
THE LAST DOLLAR.
Generally the money leaks silently
from the merchants till into the game
ster's wallet. I believe that one of the
main pipes leading to this sewer Of in
iquity is the excitement Of business
life. Is it not a significant fact that
the majority Of the day gambling
houses in New York are in proximity
to Wall street? Men go into excite
ment of stock gambling, and from that
they plunge into the gambling houses,
as, when men are intoxicated, they go
into a liquor saloon to get more drink.
The agitation hat is witnessed in the
stock market when the chai an
nounced the word northwestern" or
Fort Wayne" or Rock Island" or
New York Central" and the rat, tat,
tat, of the auctioneer's hammer, M
the excitement of making Corners
and getting up pools" and carrying
stock" and a break from 80 to 20,
and the excitement of rushing around
in curbstone brokerage, and the sud
den cries of Buyer three" Buyer
ten!" take 'em How Many" and
the making or losing Of $4,000 by one
operation, units a man to go home, n
so he goes up the flight of stairs, amid
business offices, to the darkly curtain
ed, wooden shattered room, gayly fur
nished inside, and takes his place at
the roulette or the faro table. But I
cannot tell all the process by which
men get into this evil. A nan went to
New York He was a western mer-
chant. He went into a gaming house on
Park place. Before morning he had
lost all his money save 81, and he NOV
ed around about with that dollar in his
hand, n after awhile, caught still
more powerfully under the Internal in
]fatuation, he came up and put down
the dollar and cried out until they
heard him through the saloon, zone
thousand miles from home, and my
last dollar on the gaming table,
LOST PROPERTY AND SOULS.
Many years ago for sermonic pur-
nncoc md in onpononv with fhn chief
of police of New York I visited one of
the most brilliant gambling houses in
that city. 1t was night. and as we came
up in front all seemed dark. The blinds
were down., the door was guarded, but
after a whispering of the officer with
the guard at the dOOr We were admitted
into the hall, and thence into the par
lors, around one table finding eight or
ten men in midlife, we'll dressed-all
the work going OF in silence, saw the
noise Of the rafting chips" on the
gaming table in one parlor and the re-
vO1ving ball of the roulette table in the
other parlOr. some of these men. we
We're told, had served terms in prison,
some We're shipwrecked bankers. and
brokers and money dealers. and some
were going their first ounds of vice
but all intent upon the table, as large
or small fortunes moved up and down
O1oIC tAlCIi- Oh- liiCiC wax
awfully solemn in the silence-the in
passed out. While he stood there men
the players. No one looked up. They
all had money in the rapids, and I have
no doubt some saw, as they sat there,
horses and carriages, and houses and
lands, and home and family rushing
down into the vortex. A mans life
would not have been worth a farthing
in that presence had he not been &C
Ix, +lo ,oI;4a 20 - lo7 l4n-
supposed to be on a Christian errand of
observation. Some Of these men went
by private key, soma went in by care
fui Introduction, some were taken in by
the patrons of the establishment. The
officer Of the law told me, None get
in here except by police mandate or by
some letter Of a patron" While We
We're there a young nan came in, put
his one down or the roulette table
and lost: put more money down on the
roulette able and lost; put more money
down on the roulette table and lost: