The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-10-25

of this sweeping statement you can easily verify 1t by going to some college town after any great athletic contest. The in- ebriety you will witness on its streets is disgusting.
 But there is another reason why I de- nounce defiant gambling. This evil mania leads it's victims to squander other peoples money as we'll as their own. Now, I am not aluding to the poor. half crazed clerk who will steal from his em- ployer in order to bet on the races am not aluding to the poor servant girl who opens her mistress pocket book in order" to take out a fifty cent piece to squander it in policy shop, or to the bank pres ident who, as trustee of an estate crim- inaly sinks in wildcat speculations the money intrutsed into his care. They are criminals. and they know fl. But I am alluding to those who think they are wagering only that money which is theirs by right.
 Pit of Eternal Woe.
 Young man, you say that you own your own money and have a right to do with it as you will. No you have not. Where did you get that money? "Oh," you say, father left it 10 me in his will" For what did he leave it to you? Did he not leave it as a trust? Did he not leave 1t to you in order that you with it could continue to spread abroad his Christian influence Money Is representative word Money translated into the ordinary language of life means work and blood and sweat and exhausted energy Moneyi Why, that represents the woman scrub ping at the tub and the book-keeper compiling his figures and the nurse pour ing out the medicines and the carpenter building houses and the flowers for the sick and the gospel for the ignorant and the depraved. Do you mean to tell me, man, that at the gambling table you have a right to squander your mothers and fathers substance like that? And yet go into any one of the postgraduate schools and colleges today and you will find young men at the gaming table not more surely destroying themselves than squandering the money that was won by the self denying sacrifices of parental lives.
 But" some one else says. "the money I have in mine. Why? l did not inherit it or have it given to me. l made it. Therefore I have right to do with it as l please" oh, no, my brother, you have not. That money which you made is not yours. It belongs to your children When your Title children came into the world they brought to you certain moral obli- gations. You had no right to become a father unless you were ready to the best of your ability to look after your babies. That money which you squander at the gambling table means more than money. It means your children's clothes, your childrens schooling your children's proper start in life. Dr. Mott, I believe it was, who said, "A gamblers heart after a while will become so dead to all love that if necessary he will be willing to gamble upon his own mothers coffin lid" You say that it is a monstrous state- ment. I say it is not. He may not do that, but the gambler will do worse. He will destroy his children. It would be infinitely more humane for me to gam be upon my mothers coffin lid than to gamble away my children's education and opportunities. The cold lips of my dead mother could not rebuke me, while the cracked. blistered tongue of the out ragged and dshonored and disgraced child of a heartless gambler might curse my soul in to the black pit of eternal woe.
 A Rule With No Exceptions.
 But" says some one again, it is not certain that I should lose. If l win at the gambling table l am guitless of the wrongs against parents and children that you are denouncing." Well. my brother, with a gambling tendency you have no right to suppose any such case All gamblers-shall I say all? Yes, practi- cally all-utimately lose every cent they ever win at Fortunas altar There are practlcally no eXctptionS to lHlS fuie Fortunas temple was built for the god dess of chance. but in gambling there is no chance; the deyotee practically loses all If this statement is not true how can you acconnt for the fact that every year the annual expenditures to run Monte Carlo are s5000.Oy0. and yet each year the shareholders of that evil resort divide nearly $3.OOo.OOo profits? If this , statement is not true how can you ac- count for the fact that the Louisianan lottery was able to expend millions upon millions of dollars every year for corrup- tion and bribery and public improve ments" and taxes and yet was able to make it's owners mllionaires many times over? If this is not true how can the great gambling establishments of the