Connecticut western news., 1897-08-05

ing house, this pulling down of hun dred yards of goods and selling rem nant, this always waiting upon some tody else when could put $100 on the ace and pick up $l, ,000."
 An Insidious Sin.
 This sin works very insidiously. Other sins sound the drum, and Haunt the flag, and gather their recruits with wild huzza, but this marches its process sion of pale victims in dead of night, in silence, and when they drop into the grave there is not so much sound as the click of dice. Oh, how many have gone down under it Look at those men who were once highly prospered. Now their forehead is licked by tongue of flame that will never go out In their souls are plugged the beaks which will never be lifted. Swing open the door of that mans heart and you see coil of adders wriggling their indescribable horror until you turn away and hide your face and ask God to help you to forget it. Tine most of this evil is unad- vertised. The community does not hear of it. Men defraudcd in gaming estab- lishments are not fools enough to tell of it. Once in awhile, however, there is an exposure, as when in Boston the po- lice swooped upon gaming establish ment and found in it the representatives of all classes of citizens, from the first merchants on State street to the low Ann street gamblers as when Bullock, the cashier of the Central Railroad of Georgia, was found to have stolen $103, ,000 for the purpose of carrying on gaming practices; as when young man in one of the savings banks of Brooklyn many years ago was found to have sto- len $40,0 to carry on gaming prac- tices; as when a man connected with a Wall street insurance company was found 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 significant fact that the majority of the day gambling houses in New York are in proximity to Wall street? Men go into the excitement of stock gambling, and from that they plunge into the gambling houses, as, when men are intoxicated, they go into liquor saloon to get more drink. The agitation that is witnessed in the stock market when the chair announced the word Northwestern, or Fort Wayne, or "Rock Island," or "New York Central" and the rat, tat, tat, of the auctioneer's hammer, and the ex- citement of making "corners, and getting up "pools," and Carrying stock" and "break" from 80 to 70, and the excitement of rushing around in curbstone brokerage, and the sud den cries of Buyer threel" Buyer tenp' "Take 'eml' "How many?" and the making or losing of $1O, 900 by one operation, units man to go home, and so he goes up the flight of stairs, amid business offices, to the darkly curtained, wooden shuttered room, gayly fur nished inside, and takes his place at the roulette or the faro table. But cannot tell all the process by which men get into this evil. A man went to New York. He was a western merchant. He went into a gaming house on Park place. Before morning he had lost all his money save $1, and he moved around about with that dollar in his hand, and 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, "One thousand miles from home, and my last dollar on the gaming table. :"
 Lost Property and Souls.
 Many years ago for sermonic pur- poses and in company with the chief of police of New York visited one of the most brilliant gambling houses in that city. It was night, and as we came up in front all seemed dark. The blinds were down, the door was guarded, but after 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 on ill silence, save the noise of the rattling "chips" on the gaming table in one parlor and the re- volving ball of the roulette table in the other parlor. Some of these men, we were told, had served terms in prison, some were shipwrecked bankers and brokers and money dealers, and some were going their first rounds of vice but all intent upon the table, as large or small fortunes moved up and down before them. Oh, there was something awfully solemn in the silence-the in- tense gaze, the suppressed emotions of the players. No one looked up They all had money in the rapids, and 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 farthing in that presence had he not been ac- companied by the police, if he had been observation. Some of these men went by private key, some went in by care ful~introduction. some were taken in by the patrons of the establishment. The officer of the law told me, "None gets in here except by police mandate or by some letter of a patron" While we were there young man came in, put his money down on the roulette table and lost; put more money down on the roulette table and lost; put more money down on the roulette table and lost; then feeling in his pockets for more money, finding none, in severe silence he turned his back upon the scene and passed out. While we stood there men lost their property and lost their souls. Oh, merciless place! Not once in all the history of that gaming house has there been one word of sympathy uttered for the losers at the game.
 Sir Horace Walpole said that man dropped dead in one of the clubhouses of London. His body was carried into the clubhouse, and the members of the L l.-I II