The weekly intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1891-1901, 1898-04-09

hcr1ted Il large property, SlLS AZ Ihe
hazard tables, and takes up in IA dice
box the estate won by a fathers life
time sweat, and shakes it and losses 1t
away. Intempcrance soon stigmatlZes
its victim, kicking him out. a SLAYER
ing fool, into the ditch, or sending him
with the drunkard's h~iccough, stagger-
ing up the street where his family
lives. Pat gambling does not in that
| way expose it's victims. The gambler
may be eaten up by the gamblers pas
sion, yet you only discover it by the
greed in his eyes, the hardness of his
features, the threadbare coat, and his
| embarrassed business. Yet he is on
the road to ruin, and no preachers
voice, or startling warning, or wife's
~entreaty, can make him stay for a mo-
m ent his headlong career.
The internal spell is on him; a giant
is aroused within; and though you
bind him with cables, they would part
like thread, and though you fasten
him seven times around with chains,
they would snap like rusted wire; and
though you piled up in his path Heaven
high Bibles, tracts and sermons, and
on the top should set the cross of the
Son of God, over them all the gambler
NOuAA ANoP AAhS " W. O'SA NNS AOSho1
on his way to perdition. "Aceldama,
the field of blood"
Again, this sin works ruin by killing
industry. A man used to reaping
scores or hundreds of dollars from the
gaming table will not be content with
slow work. He will say, What is the
use OF: trying to make these $50 in my
store, when l can make five times hat
mount in half an hour by the dice?"
You never knew a confirmed gambler
who was industrious. The men given
to this vice spend their time, not
actively employed in the game, in idle
ness or i~ntoXicatiou, or in sleep, or in
corrupting new victims. This sin has
dulled the carpenters saw, and cut the
band of the factory wheel, sunk the
cargo. broken the teeth of the farm
er's harrow, and sent a strange light
ming to shatter the battery of the
philosopher. The very first idea in
gaming is at war with all the indus
tries of society.
Any trade or occupation that is of
use is enrolling. The street sweeper
advances the interests of society by
the cleanliness effected. The cat pays
for the fragments it eats by clearing
the house of vermin. The fly that
takes the sweetness from the dregs of
the cup compensates by purifying the
air and keeping back the pestilence.
But the gambler gives not anything
for that which he takes. l recall hat
sentence. He does make u return; but
it is disgrace to the man he ~fieeces, de-
spair to his heart, ruin to his business,
anguish to his wife, shame to his chill
dren and eternal wasting away to his
soul. He pays in tears and blood and
agony and darkness and woe. What
dull work is blowing to the farmer
when in the village saloon in one night
he makes and loses the value of a sum
mer harvest Who will want to sell
tape and measure nankeen and cut
garments and weigh sugar, when in a
nights game he makes and loses and
makes again and loses again the profits
of n season?
Furthermore, his sin is the source
of dishonesty. The game of hazard
itself is often a cheat. How many |
tricks and receptions in the dealing of
the cards! The opponents hand is
often found out by fraud. Cards are
marked so that they may be desig-
mated from the back. Expert game
sters have their ~accomplices, and one
wink may decide the game. The dice
have been found loaded with platina,
SO that douolets come up every time.
These dice are introduced by the gam
blers unobserved by the honest men
who ave come into h play, and this
accounts for the fact that 90 out of 100
who gamble, however wealthy when
they began, at the end are found to be
poor, miserable, haggard wretches,
hat would not now be allowed to sit
on the doorstep of the house that they
once owned.
In a clearinghouse in San Francisco, |
a young nan having just come from
the mines, deposited a large sum upon
the ace and won S22, 900. But the tide
turns. Intense anxiety comes upon
the countenances of all. 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 produce their
pistols and the uproar is silenced and
the bank has won sos, 900. Do you call
this a game OF chanceP There is no
chance about it.
Notice also the effect of this crime
upon domestic happiness. II has sent
its ruthless plowshare through hun
dreds of families, until the wife sat in
rags, and the daughters were dis
graced, and the sons grew up to the
same infamous practices, or too a
short cut to destruction across the
murderer's scaffold. Home has lost all
charms for the gambler. How tame
are the cbildren's caresses and a wife's
devotion to the gambler How dreari,
ly the fire burns on the domestic
hearth! There must be louder laugh
ter, and something to win, and some
thing to lose; an excitement to drive
the heart faster. flip the blood and
fire the imagination. No home. how
ever bright, can keep back the game
ster. The sweet call of love pounds
from his iron soul, and all en-
are consumed in the fire of
passion. The family Bible will go
after all other treasures are lost, and
II his crow in Heaven were put into
hand he would cry: "Here goes;
one more game, my boys. On this one
throw / stake my crown of Heaven"
Gift stores are abundant through
out h country. With a book, or
or sewing machine, or coat, oil
carriage, there goes n prize. At these
stores people get something thrown in
with their purchase. 1t may be a gold
Or a set of silver, a ring, or a
farm. Sharp way to get off unstable
goods. 1t has filed the land with fie-
articles, and covered up our
with brass finger rings,
and despoiled the moral sense of this
community and is fast making us a ma
ton of gamblers.
The church of God has o seemed
willing to allow the world to nav all
the advantage of these games of
A church bazaar opens, and
the close it is found hat some
Of the more valuable articles are unsala-
BILE. FORTHWITH, the conductors Of the
enterprise conclude that they will rattle
for some of the valuable articles, and,
under pretcnse of anxiety to make
their minister d present or please some
popular member of the church,
fascinating persons are dispatched
the room, pencil in hand, to
solicit shares" OF perhaps each draw
for his own advantage, and scores of
people go home with their trophies,
thinking that it is all right, for Chris,