SECTION I. _On Gaming._
Even Voltaire a.s.serts that "every gambler is, has been, or will be a robber." Few practices are more ancient, few more general, and few, if any, more pernicious than gaming. An English writer has ingeniously suggested that the Devil himself might have been the first player, and that he contrived the plan of introducing games among men, to afford them temporary amus.e.m.e.nt, and divert their attention from themselves.
"What numberless disciples," he adds, "of his sable majesty, might we not count in our own metropolis!"
Whether his satanic majesty has any very direct agency in this matter or not, one thing is certain;--gaming is opposed to the happiness of mankind, and ought, in every civilized country, to be suppressed by public opinion. By gaming, however, I here refer to those cases only in which property is at stake, to be won or lost. The subject of _diversions_ will be considered in another place.
Gaming is an evil, because, in the first place, it is a practice which _produces_ nothing. He who makes two blades of gra.s.s grow where but one grew before, has usually been admitted to be a public benefactor; for he is a _producer_. So is he who combines or arranges these productions in a useful manner,--I mean the mechanic, manufacturer, &c. He is equally a public benefactor, too, who produces _mental_ or _moral_ wealth, as well as physical. In gaming, it is true, property is shifted from one individual to another, and here and there one probably gains more than he loses; but nothing is actually _made_, or _produced_. If the whole human family were all skilful gamesters, and should play constantly for a year, there would not be a dollar more in the world at the end of the year, than there was at its commencement. On the contrary, is it not obvious that there would be much _less_, besides even an immense loss of time?[9]
But, secondly, gaming favors corruption of manners. It is difficult to trace the progress of the gamester"s mind, from the time he commences his downward course, but we know too well the goal at which he is destined to arrive. There may be exceptions, but not many; generally speaking, every gamester, sooner or later travels the road to perdition, and often adds to his own wo, by dragging others along with him.
Thirdly, it discourages industry. He who is accustomed to receive large sums at once, which bear no sort of proportion to the labor by which they are obtained, will gradually come to regard the moderate but constant and certain rewards of industrious exertion as insipid. He is also in danger of falling into the habit of paying an undue regard to hazard or chance, and of becoming devoted to the doctrine of fatality.
As to the few who are skilful enough to gain more, on the whole, than they lose, scarcely one of them pays any regard to prudence or economy in his expenditures. What is thus lightly acquired, is lightly disposed of. Or if, in one instance in a thousand, it happens otherwise, the result is still unfavorable. It is but to make the miser still more a miser, and the covetous only the more so. Man is so const.i.tuted as to be unable to bear, with safety, a rapid acc.u.mulation of property. To the truth of this, all history attests, whether ancient or modern, sacred or profane.
The famous philosopher Locke, in his "Thoughts on Education," thus observes: "It is certain, gaming leaves no satisfaction behind it to those who reflect when it is over; and it no way profits either body or mind. As to their estates, if it strike so deep as to concern them, it is a _trade_ then, and not a _recreation_, wherein few thrive; and at best a thriving gamester has but a poor trade of it, who fills his pockets at the price of his reputation."
In regard to the _criminality_ of the practice, a late writer has the following striking remarks.
"As to gaming, it is always _criminal_, either in itself or in its tendency. The basis of it is covetousness; a desire to take from others something for which you have neither given, nor intend to give an equivalent. No gambler was ever yet a happy man, and few gamblers have escaped being positively miserable. Remember, too, that to game for _nothing_ is still _gaming_; and naturally leads to gaming for _something_. It is sacrificing time, and that, too, for the worst of purposes.
"I have kept house for nearly forty years; I have reared a family; I have entertained as many friends as most people; and I never had cards, dice, a chess board, nor any implement of gaming under my roof. The hours that young men spend in this way, are hours murdered; precious hours that ought to be spent either in reading or in writing; or in rest; preparatory to the duties of the dawn.
"Though I do not agree with those base flatterers who declare the army to be _the best school for statesmen_, it is certainly a school in which we learn, experimentally, many useful lessons; and in this school I learned that men fond of gaming, are rarely, if ever, trust-worthy. I have known many a decent man rejected in the way of promotion, only because he was addicted to gaming. Men, in that state of life, cannot _ruin_ themselves by gaming, for they possess no fortune, nor money; but the taste for gaming is always regarded as an indication of a radically bad disposition; and I can truly say that I never in my whole life--and it has been a long and eventful one--knew a man fond of gaming, who was not, in some way or other, unworthy of confidence. This vice creeps on by very slow degrees, till, at last, it becomes an ungovernable pa.s.sion, swallowing up every good and kind feeling of the heart."
For my own part I know not the _names_ of cards; and could never take interest enough in card-playing to remember them. I have always wondered how sober and intelligent people, who have consciences, and believe the doctrine of accountability to G.o.d--how professing Christians even, as is the case in some parts of this country, can sit whole evenings at cards. Why, what notions have they of the value of time? Can they conceive of Him, whose example we are bound to follow, as engaged in this way? The thought should shock us! What a Herculean task Christianity has yet to accomplish!
The excess of this vice has caused even the overthrow of empires. It leads to conspiracies, and creates conspirators. Men overwhelmed with debt, are always ready to obey the orders of any bold chieftain who may attempt a decisive stroke, even against government itself. Catiline had very soon under his command an army of scoundrels. "Every man," says Sall.u.s.t, "who by his follies or losses at the gaming table had consumed the inheritance of his fathers, and all who were sufferers by such misery, were the friends of this perverse man."
Perhaps this vice has nowhere been carried to greater excess than in France. There it has its administration, its chief, its stockholders, its officers, and its priests. It has its domestics, its pimps, its spies, its informers, its a.s.sa.s.sins, its bullies, its aiders, its abettors,--in fact, its scoundrels of every description; particularly its hireling swindlers, who are paid for decoying the unwary into this "h.e.l.l upon earth," so odious to morality, and so destructive to virtue and Christianity.
In England, this vice has at all times been looked upon as one of pernicious consequence to the commonwealth, and has, therefore, long been prohibited. The money lost in this way, is even recoverable again by law. Some of the laws on this subject were enacted as early as the time of Queen Anne, and not a few of the penalties are very severe.
Every species of gambling is strictly forbidden in the British army, and occasionally punished with great severity, by order of the commander in chief. These facts show the state of public opinion in that country, in regard to the evil tendency of this practice.
Men of immense wealth have, in some instances, entered gambling houses, and in the short s.p.a.ce of an hour have found themselves reduced to absolute beggary. "Such men often lose not only what their purses or their bankers can supply, but houses, lands, equipage, jewels; in fine, every thing of which they call themselves masters, even to their very clothes; then perhaps a pistol terminates their mortal career."
Fifteen hours a day are devoted by many infatuated persons in some countries to this unhappy practice. In the middle of the day, while the wife directs with prudence and economy the administration of her husband"s house, he abandons himself to become the prey of rapacious midnight and _mid-day_ robbers. The result is, that he contracts debts, is stripped of his property, and his wife and children are sent to the alms-house, whilst he, perhaps, _perishes in a prison_.
My life has been chiefly spent in a situation where comparatively little of this vice prevails. Yet, I have known one individual who divided his time between hunting and gaming. About four days in the week were regularly devoted to the latter practice. From breakfast to dinner, from dinner to tea, from tea to nine o"clock, this was his regular employment, and was pursued incessantly. The man was about seventy years of age. He did not play for very large sums, it is true; seldom more than five to twenty dollars; and it was his uniform practice to retire precisely at nine o"clock, and without supper.
Generally, however, the night is more especially devoted to this employment. I have occasionally been at public houses, or on board vessels where a company was playing, and have known many hundreds of dollars lost in a single night. In one instance, the most horrid midnight oaths and blasphemy were indulged. Besides, there is an almost direct connection between the gambling table and brothel; and the one is seldom long unaccompanied by the other.
Scarcely less obvious and direct is the connection between this vice and intemperance. If the drunkard is not always a gamester, the gamester is almost without exception intemperate. There is for the most part a union of the three--horrible as the alliance may be--I mean gambling, intemperance, and debauchery.
There is even a species of intoxication attendant on gambling. _Rede_, in speaking of one form of this vice which prevails in Europe, says; "It is, in fact, a PROMPT MURDERER; irregular as all other games of hazard--rapid as lightning in its movements--its strokes succeed each other with an activity that redoubles the ardor of the player"s blood, and often deprives him of the advantage of reflection. In fact, a man after half an hour"s play, who for the whole night may not have taken any thing stronger than water, has all the appearance of drunkenness."
And who has not seen the flushed cheek and the red eye, produced simply by the excitement of an ordinary gaming table?
It is an additional proof of the evil of gaming that every person devoted to it, _feels_ it to be an evil. Why then does he not refrain?
Because he has sold himself a slave to the deadly habit, as effectually as the drunkard to his cups.
Burgh, in his Dignity of Human Nature, sums up the evils of this practice in a single paragraph:
"Gaming is an amus.e.m.e.nt wholly unworthy of rational beings, having neither the pretence of exercising the body, of exerting ingenuity, or of giving any natural pleasure, and owing its entertainment wholly to an unnatural and vitiated taste;--the cause of infinite loss of time, of enormous destruction of money, of irritating the pa.s.sions, of stirring up avarice, of innumerable sneaking tricks and frauds, of encouraging idleness, of disgusting people against their proper employments, and of sinking and debasing all that is truly great and valuable in the mind."
Let me warn you, then, my young readers,--nay, more, let me _urge_ you never to enter this dreadful road. Shun it as you would the road to destruction. Take not the first step,--the moment you do, all may be lost. Say not that you can command yourselves, and can stop when you approach the confines of danger. So thousands have thought as sincerely as yourselves--and yet they fell. "The probabilities that we shall fall where so many have fallen," says Dr. Dwight, "are millions to one; and the contrary opinion is only the dream of lunacy."
When you are inclined to think yourselves safe, consider the mult.i.tudes who once felt themselves equally so, have been corrupted, distressed, and ruined by gaming, both for this world, and that which is to come.
Think how many families have been plunged by it in beggary, and overwhelmed by it in vice. Think how many persons have become liars at the gaming table; how many perjured; how many drunkards; how many blasphemers; how many suicides. "If Europe," said Montesquieu, "is to be ruined, it will be ruined by gaming." If the United States are to be ruined, gaming in some of its forms will be a very efficient agent in accomplishing the work.
Some of the most common games practised in this country, are cards, dice, billiards, shooting matches, and last, though not _least_, lotteries. Horse-racing and c.o.c.kfighting are still in use in some parts of the United States, though less so than formerly. In addition to the general remarks already made, I now proceed to notice a few of the particular forms of this vice.
1. CARDS, DICE, AND BILLIARDS.
The foregoing remarks will be applicable to each of these three modes of gambling. But in regard to cards, there seems to be something peculiarly enticing. It is on this account that youth are required to be doubly cautious on this point. So bewitching were cards and dice regarded in England, that penalties were laid on those who should be found playing with them, as early as the reign of George II. Card playing, however, still prevails in Europe, and to a considerable extent in the United States. There is a very common impression abroad, that the mere _playing_ at cards is in itself innocent: that the danger consists in the tendency to excess; and against excess most people imagine themselves sufficiently secure. But as "the best throw at dice, is to throw them away," so the best move with cards would be, to commit them to the flames.
2. SHOOTING MATCHES.
This is a disgraceful practice, which was formerly in extensive use in these States at particular seasons, especially on the day preceding the annual Thanksgiving. I am sorry to say, that there are places where it prevails, even now. Numbers who have nothing better to do, collect together, near some tavern or grog-shop, for the sole purpose of trying their skill at shooting fowls. Tied to a stake at a short distance, a poor innocent and helpless fowl is set as a mark to furnish sport for idle men and boys.
Could the creature be put out of its misery by the first discharge of the musket, the evil would not appear so great. But this is seldom the case. Several discharges are usually made, and between each, a running, shouting and jumping of the company takes place, not unfrequently mingled with oaths and curses.
The object of this infernal torture being at length despatched, and suspended on the muzzle of the gun as a trophy of victory, a rush is made to the bar or counter, and brandy and rum, accompanied by lewd stories, and perhaps quarrelling and drunkenness, often close the scene.
It rarely fails that a number of children are a.s.sembled on such occasions, who listen with high glee to the conversation, whether in the field or at the inn. If it be the grossest profaneness, or the coa.r.s.est obscenity, they will sometimes pride themselves in imitating it, thinking it to be manly; and in a like spirit will partake of the gla.s.s, and thus commence the drunkard"s career.--This practice is conducted somewhat differently in different places, but not essentially so.
It is much to the credit of the citizens of many parts of New England that their good sense will not, any longer, tolerate a practice so brutal, and scarcely exceeded in this respect by the c.o.c.kfights in other parts of the country. As a subst.i.tute for this practice a circle is drawn on a board or post, of a certain size, and he who can hit within the circle, gains the fowl. This is still a species of _gaming_, but is divested of much of the ferocity and brutality of the former.
3. HORSERACING AND c.o.c.kFIGHTING.
It is only in particular sections of the United States that public opinion tolerates these practices extensively. A horserace, in New England, is a very rare occurrence. A c.o.c.kfight, few among us have ever witnessed. Wherever the cruel disposition to indulge in seeing animals fight together is allowed, it is equally degrading to human nature with that fondness which is manifested in other countries for witnessing a bull fight. It is indeed the _same_ disposition, only existing in a smaller degree in the former case than in the latter.
Montaigne thinks it a reflection upon human nature itself that few people take delight in seeing beasts caress and play together, while almost every one is pleased to see them lacerate and worry one another.
Should your lot be cast in a region where any of these inhuman practices prevail, let it be your constant and firm endeavor, not merely to keep aloof from them yourselves, but to prevail on all those over whom G.o.d may have given you influence, to avoid them likewise. To enable you to face the public opinion when a point of importance is at stake, it will be useful to consult carefully the first chapter of this work.
I am sorry to have it in my power to state that in the year 1833 there was a _bull fight_ four miles southward of Philadelphia. It was attended by about 1500 persons; mostly of the very lowest cla.s.ses from the city. It was marked by many of the same evils which attend these cruel sports in other countries, and by the same reckless disregard of mercy towards the poor brutes who suffered in the conflict. It is to be hoped, however, for the honor of human nature, that the good sense of the community will not permit this detestable custom to prevail.
[9] Every man who enjoys the privileges of civilized society, owes it to that society to earn as much as he can; or, in other words, improve every minute of his time. He who loses an hour, or a minute, is the price of that hour debtor to the community.
Moreover, it is a debt which he can never repay.
SECTION II. _On Lotteries._
Lotteries are a species of gambling; differing from other kinds only in being tolerated either by the law of the land, or by that of public opinion. The proofs of this a.s.sertion are innumerable. Not only young men, but even married women have, in some instances, become so addicted to ticket buying, as to ruin themselves and their families.
From the fact that efforts have lately been made in several of the most influential States in the Union to suppress them, it might seem unnecessary, at first view, to mention this subject. But although the letter of the law may oppose them, there is a portion of our citizens who will continue to buy tickets clandestinely; and consequently somebody will continue to sell them in the same manner. Penalties will not suppress them at once. It will be many years before the evil can be wholly eradicated. The flood does not cease at the moment when the windows of heaven are closed, but continues, for some time, its ravages. It is necessary, therefore, that the young should guard themselves against the temptations which they hold out.
It may be said that important works, such as monuments, and churches, have been completed by means of lotteries. I know it is so. But the profits which arise from the sale of tickets are a tax upon the community, and generally upon the poorer cla.s.ses: or rather they are a species of swindling. That good is sometimes done with these ill-gotten gains, is admitted; but money procured in any other unlawful, immoral, or criminal way, could be applied to build bridges, roads, churches, &c. Would the advantages thus secured, however, justify an unlawful means of securing them? Does the end sanctify the means?
It is said, too, that individuals, as well as a.s.sociations, have been, in a few instances, greatly aided by prizes in lotteries. Some bankrupts have paid their debts, _like_ honest men, with them. This they might do with stolen money. But cases of even this kind, are rare.