The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-09-08
4 MENACE
BY zITELLA COOKIE.

Dangers are wont to turk in the most
 unsuspected places. Our very sins are
 but exaggerated virtues. and the in- nocent diversions which are designed
 to refresh and recreate us. too often
 become the instruments of our betrayal and degeneration. The line of demar- cation between the virtues and vices Is not always so clear or distinct that
 he who runs may read, but, on the contrary, Is prone to lose itself In a maze of perplexity so intricate that the most practiced or most discerning
 eye may fail to detect it. As
 Surely, there can hardly be a less harmful diversion than the use of cards and gaf-Ns as a mere pastime. The most rigid severity of piety and ab- stinence which has denounced dancing as an indulgence, altogether too caPnal for Christians. has not unfre, quently relented in its sternness to- ward the innocent amusement of play ing cards. and esteemed quiet game
 of whist or euchre far less accessible to the insidious approaches of Satan than the boisterous reel or the voluptu-
 ous waltz. w neither invented for the pur- pose of relieving the over-taxed mind of an invalid monarch, or by Asiatic soothsayers, who aimed at a means of instruction and consolation rather than one of amusement and recreation. 1t is
 unnecessary now to consider. Cards,
 with ali their powers of divinatton and
 technical lore, are with us and have come to stay. They have already lived through centuries in the guise of mys-
 tic volume, and as instruments of amusement, and. again. the wandering
 Gypsy woman who fingers them to
 learn the course of destiny. iJ nue to
 the tradition of her ancestry and her country, and the laborious miner in
 the West who stakes his wealth of nuggets or pan of gold-dust upon the success of play, is only repeating the
 hazards and chances of by-gone ages.
 Whether. then. the end may be lnstruc-
 ton. divination, gaming or time-kill- ing, cards possess a fascination which has enthralled every nation and every
 people, and where cards are wanting. other things have supplied all the
 means of gaming. There seems to be in man propensity. inveterate and innate, which gladly risks the loss of
 what he possesses for the chance of acquiring that which belongs to an- other. Legislation against gaming is as old as it's instruments, says Jeremy Taylor.
 Many fierce declarations from an- cient sanctity have been uttered against cards and dice, by reason of the craft used in the game, and the consequent evils as invented by the devil. In China and India the mania for play surpasses every other thing in its reekl4ssness. Mohammed made rigid laws against gaming, and 1t is wonderful to what extent the better class of Moslems have abstained from lt. while the lower classes are far more temperate in their use of cards and dice
 than Christians on the continent of Europe. On the other hand, the multi piled prohibitions on the part of the fathers in the church seemed of little or no avail, and in the eleventh cen- Lury, Cardinal Damian condemned a Florentine bishop. who had played at a hotel to great excess, to wash the feet, of a. dozen paupers, and then to give them crown apiece. which lat ter punishment was, doubtless, far more unacceptable to his holiness. The gambling Cardinal Mazarin is far too famous to require dishonorable men, tion here. Good Queen Bess enacted some of her severest laws on the evils of gambling, and the Romans issued edicts against 1t. which. by their se- verity, revealed the excess to which 1t was carried. Yet legislation seems to have achieved as little in the past as in the present day It Is related that a King of Scandinavia was im- pressed with violent horror of gam ing. and prohibited 1t throughout his dominions under the severest penal ties. No play of any kind, cards, dice or lots, was permitted. and his majesty was congratulatlng himself upon the success of his enactment, when the police warned him that cer- tain great lords were in the habit of Tn aaqannhlU nlnX- Ing to most unreasonable excess. The chosen spot for this enormous betting proved to be a spacious saloon. and forthwith spy insinuated himself into the company. But, to his surprise. every thing seemed in strict accord ance with the law. No one spoke--no cards, no dice. no lots. Yet, strange to say. from time to time. certain ones of the company manifested emotions of delight. while others appeared cor respondingiy depressed. Money, too, was passing from one hand to another. and evidently some kind of a play was going on. In vain the spy endeavored to detect it, and long time had elapsed before the king discovered the device of his courtiers, whose love for gaming had surmounted every obstacle to its indulgence. and the device proved to be this. They kept their eyes on the lofty windows of the saloon, each one selecting a pane to observe. and the winner was he on whose pane In a given number of minutes the greatest number of flies had alighted. A right royal game. forsooth, but the mania for gambling disclaims no means. how ever trif1ing or contemptible, to ac- complish its purpose.
 Yet, it may be said that these things are of the dead past. and where Is the danger which threatens us today? Pray, where turks the menace which seems SO imminent to the pessimistic mind? Like the hole of the serpent and the lair of the asp, this danger does lnrk in the most beautiful bow CTS and amid the sweetest and fairest flowers. There was a time. and time not 90 very remote from the present day. when 1t would have been impos- sibIe to find an American woman who was addicted to gambltng-aye--when the American woman who played cards for only money enough to render the game interesting, was notable excep- tion The gaming saloons or Monte Carlo, registered many tale or sor- row. and many tragedy In which the women. and high-born women of Ger many and France and Italy and Spain, with here and there a dowager from England, bore a conspicuous part Duchesses and countesses lost and won fortunes in a night and if one played at all even outside of these temples especially devoted to gambling, 1t was an ignoramus indeed who refused to play for money. The commercial axiom which insists that we get out of any thing just as much as we put into 1t, was thoroughly recognized by these game loving women. and incomes not to be despised were safely reckoned