The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-08-04
WHERE GAMBLING REIGNs.

The ministers of the gospel touch the
fight key when they preach against pri-
vate and social card playing for gain.
1t is doubtful If one person in hun
dred of those who gamble began
it in the gilded gambling saloon; it
is the private card party, the social
game of chance, that, stimulates the
desire to get something for nothing by
chance. And when the craving forS
games of chance becomes strong, social
games of cards, raff1es and the like will
not satisfy the wooer of the tickle god
dess and the gambling saloons are
sought. The step from the social game
to the professional game is not a very
long one, but once taken it is almost
impossible Of being retraced. 1t is
yard going and thousand miles get
ting back The vice of gambling is
one OF the most seductive and insistent
to which poor human nature is subject
ed 1t is worse than the craving for
strong drink, and is comparable only
to the drug habit which, once acquired,
is almost always a permanency.
Card playing, per Sc, is innocent, as
long as there is no forfeit: but the mo-
ment there is something to be played
for and won or lost, it becomes gam
bling. Nor are cards and dice the only
vehicles of gambling to be condemned
There are ventures called Speculation"
that are almost as reprehensible. The
sober-faced church member who buys
or sells cotton or stocks on a margin
is merely betting that the market will
go up or down by a certain time,
though he may delude himself with the
flattering JUNCTION that he is merely en-
gazing in business transaction.
Morally there is no difference between
betting on the fluctuations of the stock
market and betting on the turn of a
| card or the color on which the roulette
wheel will stop.
Gambling has rightly been called a
universal vice. No nation has ever
succeeded in wholly suppressing it. The
reformation must be a moral rather
than legal one. In the United States,
where the will or within of a jury is in
many instances the law, punishment
cannot be melted out to gamblers when
some of the jurymen are guilty of the
offense themselves; possibly in a lesser
degree than the accused, but neverthe-
less guilty The judge on the bench
may expound the law and the prose-
cutting attorney may rupture his vocal
cords in arguing to the jury with re-
spect to its duty, but their combined
efforts cannot secure a verdict of guilty
where the jurymen think kindly of
gambling because they do it them
selves. The preachers are on the right
track. One place to fight gambling is
where it originates, and that, as we
have said, is in the playing of social
games of chance for valuable consider
atoms. Professional gamblers. that is
those who run games" are few: but
the confirmed unprofessional gamblers
are many and are to be found in about
all walks of life. Nine of ten Of this
class, If questioned, would probably ad-
NIT that their first winnings or losses
were at a social game, from which
they drifted TO the gambling saloons.
In tackling the gambling evil at its
source the ministers have undertaken
a big job but they should not despair.
Il il a good work that they have un-
dertaken and is worthy Of sincerest
support.