The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1902-08-13

ment there Is also a longing for excite
ment. which seems inbred in human ma
ture. Ping-pong or tiddle-de-winBs may
satisfy this longing for excitement in
some men, but most of us thirst for
something of less tameness.
And with the proclivities for playing
games man also possesses an innate de-
sire to risk something on the chance Of
his winning. Be the game one of skin
or absolute chance he wants to wager
something He is a gambling animal.
The only living thing in creation that
is foolish enough to venture his own
property on the chance of winning that
of another is Plato's 'featherless biped.
The most sheepish of sheep will not
draw lots for choice of pasture, and the
slliest cur would not be tempted to risk
his dinner at odd and even" Man is
the unique animal content to stake his
money and happiness on the treacherous
turn of a dice or the chance deal Of .
pack of cards.
Now. gambling is a fashion by no
m1ans new. The good people who were
Mortified over the state of affairs in New
York, for instance when u ring of pro-
fessional gamblers pretty nearly ran the
town. should have lived back a few hun
drod years when every ruler, every no.
BILE. and even the scum of humanity it
self, were inveterate gamblers
The commissions of nature which de-
stroyed PompeiI surprised a party of
men at the hazard table, where they
were discovered 1000 years later with
the dice firmly clutched in their fingers.
If one may credit Horace they could
cog a die in the Augnstian age as well
as in the English Georgian. sophocles
says of Palanedes that he invented dice
to serve instead of dinner, which office
they fulfill to this day for many a man
whom they have robbed of the means
of paying for his dinner.
The Emperor Claudius, who was 80
exceedingly prodigal in his play that he
adventured 100000 sesterces on the cast
of a de-" wrote treatise upon gaming
In those hours which he spared from the
pursuit itself; for which fact Seneca, in
his sarcastic relation of the emperor g
apotheosis, fetches him, after many ad-
ventures, to hell, where he is condemned
to play with bottomless dice box with
out any cessation; in this way his hopes
were to be fed continually, but never
satisfied.
Perhaps there might have been good
cause for this supposed punishment of
ruler who so fostered gambling, for
cheating and chance are twin sisters.
There may be honor among thieves, but
among professional gamblers there is
little of 1t. The man who "welches'-
turns on his partners or tricks them
together they will fleece the unwary by
every art known to the profession.
1T is told of the italian gamester, Pr
metal, who flourished at the end of the
sixteenth century and the beginning Of
the seventeenth. that in 1903 hearing
that a humor of play reigned at the
French court he caused great number
of false dice to be made and secretly
conveyed them to Paris, he only knowing
the secret. He then by means of ennis
saries bought up all the dice in the mar
ket and supplied his own In their stead.
This done, he obtained an introduction
at court and gambled to such good pur-
pose that he cleaned out a great part
of the nobility's pockets. Lord De Ros,
one of the most respectable of the
gambling element in England under the
Georges, was accused of practicing a
certain trick at whist. When in 1887 the
matter came up for trial it was proved
that he cheated habitually and that some
e \; lite
prudently played with him rather than
against him. The noble lord did not long
survive his disgrace. After his death
Theodore Hook proposed as his epitaph:
Here lies Englands premier baron, pa
tiently awaiting the last trump
but to return to the older records to
show what a hold gambling has had
upon men from the highest to the lowest,
in all ages, 1t may be mentioned that
Caius Caligula once converted his mag
nificent palace into a gambling house,
where, the chroniclers tell us, he fieeced
the young nobility of his times, and it is
well known that Nero was the most in
fatuated gambler of his days. Plutarch
records that the Romans matched quails
for wagers and describes Antony laugh
| Ing for wagers and describes Antony
lamenting before the battle of Actium as
though his genius covered before that
of his adversary. that the quail Of Au-
gustus were superior to his.
| If dice have gained an evil repute be-
| cause of their associations, cards surpass
them in the minds of many. And yet the
modern playing cards were invented by
the monks of the fourteenth century,
and were used, as they may be now. in
the playing of very innocent games. But
they had not long been introduced before
gambling with them became the rage. AT
the beginning of the fifteenth century we
read that this passion was so prevalent
in France that persons who were ad-
dicted to 1t were forced to restrain and
guard themselves by voluntary bonds,
resembling modern temperance pledges,
with the exception, however, that there
was a penalty for breaking the pledge.
illustrated manuscripts of that period
show that not only the women played,
but that the players stood instead of sit
ting around the table.
Henry Cheney, created by Queen Eliza
beth baron of Tudlington, played at dice
once with Henry II of France and won
from him a diamond of great price at
one cast. When the king asked what he
would have done had he lost he replied
with true British brag: II have Sleeps
| tails enough in Kent with their wool tc
buy better diamond than this"