The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1906-07-27
THE GAMBLING EVIL.

\ old story, and the same story, where
\ ever it is told It has been truly saiC
that "a Saloons is the DEVILS toll-gate
I on the road to He'll" But a gambling
\ hell is worse than saloon; it is next
\ to q bawdy house, which is next tC
\ Hell itself. The gambling habit is
4 worse than the drink habit, because
\ the drink habit gives its warning
\ while the gambling habit will make q
Z man liar and thief before he knows
\ it. Next to the Social Evil it robs more
boys and men of their money, their hon
} or and their lives, than any other one
evil habit known to the civilized world
So what is said of gambling anywhere
may be applied everywhere; and the
following from the Nashville Banner
might have been written as well for
this paper as for that, and should be
read with the same serious thought
in Columbia as in Nashville. The
PARTICLE reads:
To the Editor of the Banner:
1t was twenty-seven years ago when
l came to this city and, although have
never been inside of one of these
gambling houses. many samples of
their work have come under my OBJ
Iservation. From among these have
/ selected one which is. a fair average
of the rest and one which will be rec
Iognized as an average of thousands of
others transpiring every year.
A certain firm here discovered a So,
900 discrepancy in its bank account and
"a little quiet investigation developed
the fact that the bookkeeper had got
ten the Money by means of fors2d
checks and had lost it in the gambling
bells He was called by telephone and
asked to explain, but it was late at
night AMI he promised to make The
matter clear the next morning Wien
the next morning came he failed 70
show up and moderate search failed to
locate him, but about noon of that day
his employers We're notified that he
was in a certain room up town veFy
dangerously sick, and with much haste
they reached his side just in time to
see him die in great agony. When l
looked into the dead mans face as he
lay shrouded at the undertaker's sur
rounded by his brothers, thought of
his childhood and boyhood, for had
known him in the country as a very
bright boy. / remembered his father
and mother, who were always fore
most in everything that was best for
the community, indispensable in the
and no family stood higher
remembered the night this boy pro-
fessed religion and the day he joined
the country church. My mind ran
rapidly over the ten years of consis-
tent life he lived from that time until
ne came to Nashville.
He came here as pure as a woman ,
md every inch man. What did
Nashville do for him? Inside of three \
years after he came here he was eased I
Town gently into a suicides grave, his y
rood name gone, his best friend \
wrecked, his family broken-hearted. I
will never forget the grief of one of
lis brothers who stood by his coffin
It that time. He was the nearest to
he same age as the dead man. They
lad been playmates in childhood, close .
in boyhood and youth. He y
,laced his arm around that coffin and
'ressed his face close down to the
ace of his brother The ague that
hook his frame, the cry that rang out .
rom his SOUL the piteous words and ~
ntreaties that issuedfr his heart are "
S fresh in my mind now as they were -
t that moment. Two strong men IL
posed his arms from the coffin and as o
hey led him by me | heard in an I'M u
ertone but coming deep from his u
Oul these words: "Oh brother, Oh IL
lother Oh God" The significance of III
1ese words 4 did not eornGfehend I'M al
] later, w
The particulars of the matter, like =.
lost other cases of the kind, were not ~
iven to the papers and the general =
ublic knew very little of it, but down a. a,
the heart of the old home in the VI
Juntry everything was known and -
le wound would not heal The blow a.
as the kind that kills and in this 9
Use did its work effectively, In lit ~ u
e while the. mother died: and then a 90
'other and then sister and then 80
e father, another sister and then an ~
her brother in rapid succession. TWAS We
either age nor Illness that caused oil
cir deaths They were slain by the W.
items of Nashville through their III
representatives., the. gambling hells.
ow long will this city stand for this Sc
nd of thing? We hear much said ne