The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-04-15

factory wheel, sunk the cargo, broken
the teeth of the farmers harrow and
sent a strange lightning to shatter the
| battery of the philosopher. The very
first idea liz gaming is at war with in
dustries of society.
SOMETHING FOR NOTHING.
ANY trade Or occupation that is Of
use is ennobling. The street sweeper
advances the interest Of society by the
cleanliness effected. The cat pays for
the fragments il 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. / recall that sentence.
He o make a return, but it is dis
grace to the man that he ~leeces, 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 n loses the value
of a summer harvest. Who will want
to sell tapes and measures 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 a season?
J John Borack was sent as a mercan-
tile agent from Bremen to England
and this country. After two years his
employers mistrusted that all was not
| RIGHT He VOC q 6afa111tor for GOT 000
1t was found that he had lost in Lom-
bard street, London, s29. 900; in Fulton
street, New York, $40, 900, and in New
Orleans $4,000. He was imprisoned,
but afterWard escaped and went into
the gambling profession. He died in a
lunatic asylum. This crime is getting
its lever under many a mercantile
house in our cities, and before long
down will come the great establish
ment before us. The ten gambling
houses that once were authorized in
Paris passed through the banks year.
ly 1925, O00, 900 francs.
SOURCE OF DISHONESTY.
Furthermore this sin is the source
self is often a cheat. How many
u oiiu uCCCpliOLS III LII OSdlluS VI
the cards! The opponents hand is
often time found out by fraud. Cards
are marked so that they may be desig-
mated from the back. Expert game
sters have their a~ccOmplices, and one
wink may decide the game. The dice
have been found loaded with platina
so that doublets come up every time.
These dice are introduced by the gam
blers unobserved by the honest men
who have come into the play, and this
accounts for the fact that 80 out of 100
who gamble, however wealthy when
they began, at the end are found to be
poor, miserable, haggard wretches,
that would not now be allowed to sit
in the doorstep Of the house that they
once owned.
In a gaming house in San Francisco
a young man having just come from
the mines deposited a large sum upon
the ace and won 1921 600. But the tide
turns. Intense anxiety N upon
the c~ountenances 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
this is a game of chance? Do you call
this a game of chance? There is no
chance about it.
Notice also the effect of this crime
upon domestic happiness. 1t has sent
it's ruthless plowshare through hum
dreds of families, until the wife sat in
rags and the daughters were ~disgraced,
and the sons grew up in the same in
famous practices or took a shOrt cut
to distinctions across the murderer
| scaffold. Home has lost all charms
for the gambler. How tame are chill
dren's caresses and a wife's devotion
to the gambler! How drearily the fire
burns on the domestic hearth! There
must be louder laughter and something
to win and something to lose, an eX-
element to drive the heart faster, fill
the blood and fire the imagination.
No home, however bright, can keep
back the gamester. The sweet call of
love bounds back from his iron soul,
and all e~ndearments are consumed in
the fire of his passion. The family
Bible will &C. after all other treasures
are lost, and if his row in heaven
were put into his hand he would cry:
Here goes-one more game, my boys!
On this one throw l stake my crown Of
heaven!"
DESTROYER OF YOUTH.
A young man in London on coming
of age received a fortune of $12O,O O0,
and through gambling in three years
was thrown on his mother for support.
An only son went to New Orleans. He
was rich, intellectual and elgant IN
manners. His parents gave him on
his departure from home their last
blessing. The sharpers got hold OF
him. They flattered him. They lured
him to the gaming table and let him
win almost every time for a good while
and patted him on the back and said,
First rate player" But, fully in their
grasp, they feeced him, and his $4,000
was lost. Last of all, he put UP his
watch and lost that. Then he began