The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1898-04-15
SUBSCRIPTION: Sl.OO Per Year.

q young man having just come from
the mines, deposited large sum upon
! the ace and won S22, 900. But the tide
! turns. Intense anxiety comes upon
the countenances of ali. Slowly the
cards went forth Every eye is fixed.
| Not a sound is heard until the ace is
revealed favorable to the bank. There
are shouts of Foul FOUL" but the
keepers at the tables produced their
pistols, and the uproar is silenced, and
the bank has won $95, 900. Do you call
this game of chance? There is no
chance about it.
MY beloved parents, you will doubt
less feel momentary joy at the recep-
tion of this letter from the child of
| your bosom, on whom you have Law
ished all the favors of your declining
| years. But should feeling of Joy for
moment spring up in your hearts,
when you should have received this
from me, cherish it not l have fallen
deep, never to rise. Those gray hairs,
that l should have honored and pro-
tected, 1 shall bring down in sorrow to
the grave. | will not curse my
destroyer, but oh, may God
| avenge the wrongs and i'm
positions practiced upon the unwary,
| in way that shall best please Him!
This, my dear parents, is the last let
| ter you will ever receive from me. /
humbly pray your forgiveness. 1t is
my dying prayer. Long before you
will have received this from me the
cold grave will have closed upon me
forever. Life to me is unsupportable.
L can not, nay l will not, suffer the
shame of having ruined you. Forget
and forgive is the dying prayer of your
unfortunate son."
The old father came to the post Of
flee, got the letter and fell to the floor.
| They thought he was dead at first, but
| they pushed back the white hair from
his brow and famed him. He had
only tainted. ''Aceldama, the field of
bIood!'
The gambling spirit has not stopped
for any indecency. There transpired
in Maryland a lottery in which people
drew for lots in burying ground! The
modern habit of betting about every
thing is productive of immense mis-
chief. The most healthful and inno-
cent amusement of yachting and base
ball playing have been the occasion
agant wagers. That which to manv
has been advantageous to body and
mind has been to others the
means of financial and moral loss. The
custom is pernicious in the extreme,
where scores of men in respecta-
BILE life give themselves up to bet
ting, now on this boat, now on
! that; now on this ball club, now on
that Betting, that once was chiefly
the accompaniment of the race-courSe,
| is fast becoming national habit, and
in some circles any opinion advanced
on finance or politics is accosted with
| the interrogation: ''How much will
you bet on that, sir?"
Shall L sketch the history of the
gambler? Lured by bad company, he
! finds his way into place where honest
! men ought never to 60 He sits down
to his first game, but only for pastime,
and the desire of being thought socia-
BILE. The players deal out the cards.
They unconsciously play into Satans
hands, who takes all the tricks and
both the players souls for trumps-
he being a sharper at the game.
A slight stake is put up, just
to add interest to the play. Game
after game is played. Larger stakes
and still larger. They begin to move
nervously on their chairs. Their brows
lower, and eyes flash, until now they
who win and they who lose, fired alike
with passion, sit with set jaws, and
compressed lips, and clinched fists, and
| eyes like fireballs that seem starting
| from their sockets, to see the final turn
| before it comes; if losing, pale with
envy and tremulous with unuttered
oaths cast back red-hot upon the heart
or winning hysteric laugh
''Ha, ha! l have it,"
A few years have passed, and he is
only the wreck of man. Seating him
self at the game, ere he throws the
first card, he stakes the last relic of
his wife-the marriage ring which
| sealed the solemn vows between
them. The game is lost, and
staggering back in exhaustion he
| dreams. The bright hours of the
past mock his agony, and in his
dreams, fends with eyes of fire
and tongues of flame circle about him
with joined hands, to dance and sing
their orgies with hellish chor is, chant
ing: Hail brother!" kissing his clam
my forehead until their loathsomo
locks, flowing with serpents, crawl in
to his bosom, and sink their sharp
fangs and suck up his life's blood, and
| coiling around his heart, pinch it with
chi1ls and shudders unutterable.
Take warning! You are no stronger
than tens of thousands who have by
this practice been overthrown. No
IN, al I,
| ing tempted Beware of the first be-
ginnings This road is a down grade,
| and every instant increases the momen-
tum. Launch not upon this treacher-
| Gus sea. Splint hull1s strew the beach.
Everlasting storms howl up and
down, tossing unwary craft into the
| hellgate. / speak of what l have seen
with my own eyes. To gamblers
death-bed there comes no hope. He
| will probably die alone. His former
associates come not nigh his dwelling.
When his hour comes his miserable soul
will go out of a miserable life into
| a miserable eternity. AS his poor re-
mains pass the house where he was
ruined, old companions may look out
for a moment and say: ''There goes
the old carcass-dead at last" but they
will not get up from the table. Let
him down now into his grave. Plant
no tree to cast its shade there,
for the long, deep, eternal gloom
that settles there is shadowy
enough. Plant no 'tforget-me
nots" or eglantines around the spot,
for flowers were not made so grow on
such blasted heath. Visit it not in