Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1902-04-09
The Vice Of Gambling.

News is from the pen of A. b. Will
iiams, formerly editor OF the Green
vile News, is well worth the care
full perusal of every young man who
has ever gambled or wanted to
gamble:
Probably there are in Richmond a
number of shabby looking men, some
young and others old, who hang
around the gambling places and pike
at faro trying to take in half the lay
out, open and coppered, with one
white chip, pitifully begging chips at
poker games, scraping their pockets
to shoot away few coins at craps.
There are men who can't sleep and
can't keep away from the game even
when they have not cent to play
with and who sit around wistfully to
pick up sleepers or in the vague hope
that somebody in luck will give them a
few cents or dollars. These are the
men who are tolerated for time and
then barred out. II they are not in
Richmond this is the only town
where there are gambling houses
that lack them.
You youngster with job or an in
come, look at these wrecks with a
pittying contempt. Do you ever
think that a few years ago they were
just whore you are now-beginners
at the game with jobs and prospects
and hopes2 1t is just as sure that if
you stick to ityou will be where they
are, or perhaps worse. They are
comparatively lucky. Hundreds and
thousands of those who are treading
the road you are walking in are in
the penitenitaries or on the road.
Every year hundreds of men who
once wore clothes as good as yours
or better, who have as much sense and
character as you have and as good
connection, are fshed out of the
rivers around the big cities or found
dead on freight trains or picked up
along roads and sent to die in strange
almshouses and to be buried like as
many animals with "Unknown
Tramp" as their only epitaphs.
THE GAME WILL BEAT YOU.
The game will beat you in the end.
Every gambler will tell you that.
There is no doubt about it. The
difference between good luck and bad
at it is that with the cards or the wheel
or the dice running your way you
will last little longer. The time
must come when you must quit. If
you are lucky enough to be able to
quit before you have ruined yourself
you will be all the money out you
have lost and many bitter day in
the future you will wish you had it
and see where you could do much
for yourself or somebody you would
like to help if you had it.
Do you ever think of the histories
and the tragedies behind these old
pikers and dead beats, to say nothing
of the tramps at whom you laugh
now? All of them had women who
loved them and hoped for them, just
as you, sonny, probably have. Most
of these wrecks represent humilia-
tions more bitter than can be written
or told, long heartaches and the sick
ening sliding way of pride and con-
fidence and faith and all that makes
life beautiful and worth living.
Every man who goes TO the bad, as
a rule, represents the agony of some
helpless and unoffending woman. If
you are any kind of a man at all,
that is something that you will take
into consideration.
ARE YOU ALREADY IN DEBTP
We are satisfied that somo man
will read this who already has felt
the bitterness and the horror and the
sting of the disease. May be already
you are up to your eyes in debt, or,
worse, have begun to dip into money
belonging to somebody else intending
to pay it back and foolipg yourself
with the idea that you are honest.
There is just one way TO stop and
that is to stop. Don't cling to the
idea that sometime things must turn
your way and that when you have
pulled out of the hole you will swear
off for good. The penitentiaries and
asylums are full of men who have
been right along there. The per-
centage of the game must beat you,
If you get strictly fair showing
which you do about once in ten times.
The gamblers are not in the business
for amusement and are not going to
give you any chance they can help.
When they are absolutely on the
level you have the same chance
apainat them that any annafanr hos