Within ten years the House of Commons of England has
adjourned on "Derby Day" to go out to bet on the races; and in the
best circles of society in this country to-day are many hundreds of
professedly respectable men who are acknowledged gamblers.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in this land are every day being won
and lost through sheer gambling. Says a traveller through the West--"I
have travelled a thousand miles at a time upon the Western waters
and seen gambling at every waking moment from the commencement to the
termination of the journey." The South-west of this country reeks with
this abomination. In New Orleans every third or fourth house in many
of the streets is a gaming place, and it may be truthfully averred
that each and all of our cities are cursed with this evil.
In themselves most of the games employed in gambling are without harm.
Billiard-tables are as harmless as tea-tables, and a pack of cards as
a pack of letter envelopes, unless stakes be put up. But by their use
for gambling purposes they have become significant of an infinity
of wretchedness.
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