We will assume that in placing the bet you put your money on Gilford or Vatel for third race, Irma B. in the fourth, and Ascoli in the fifth. The number of your ticket would be 58, represented by the figures 4, 3, 2, these latter numbers indicating the horses named, as numbered on the score card. If your judgment has been correct, being the only purchaser of ticket number 58, for $1 you would receive the proceeds of the sale of the other tickets, or $201, less the percentage to the bookmaker, who pockets $30.15, or 15 per cent. thereon. But as a matter of fact, Copperfield wins the third, Laura Doxey the fourth, and Elphin the fifth. These horses being “favorites,” thirty tickets were sold on them, and the bookmaker having abstracted his $30.15, each winner receives only $5.69. In this board the bookmaker relies solely upon his percentage, and if the amount set forth be amplified to correspond with the sums usually bet at the race tracks and pool rooms, it will be seen that the profit is not only a handsome one, but it is the only one on the board that has the least “possible, probable shadow” of chance in its favor. The combination on the short horses won’t win once in a thousand times, while the winner on the selling combination gets only a sixth as much as the cosy and certain profits of the book maker.

In these pools, the board is made up for each race as it transpires, and is set forth in the following manner:

In this case, the player selects his horse for first or second place, tickets for first place being called “straight,” and those for second place, “place.” Generally only favorite horses are bought for straight, but on this board there appears to have been a large field of favorites.favorites. The buyer may purchase as many tickets as he pleases for either “straight” or “place” chances. In this event it appears that there were eighty tickets sold as “straights,” and the tickets being sold for $2 each, the amount in the pool book would be $160. The pool-seller deducts 5 per cent. of this amount, or $8, and the balance of $152 is divided between the holders of the ten tickets sold on Tom Karl, the winner. This would give to each ticket $15.20, whether held by one party or in different hands. In awarding the results in the case of the “place” in this event, the pool book exhibited 90 tickets at $2 each, or $180. The seller deducts his 5 per cent., or $9 from this, and after deducting from the remaining $171, the sum of $44, representing the amount paid in by the bettors on the winner of the race, Tom Karl, 12 tickets at $2, and on Prophecy, the winner of “place,” 10 tickets at $2, or $44 in all, he proceeds to divide the balance, $127 equally between these two winners. Thus $63.50 is divided among the ten tickets on Prophecy, giving to each $6.30, and the same amount among the holders of tickets on Tom Karl, or $5.30 to each ticket.

Let it not be supposed, however, that the book maker, or his confederates who stand in with him, are to be contented with a fifteen per cent. upon the money that passes through the pool book. On the contrary, he is the most expert and successful of all the gamblers who “play the races.” He is generally the only one of this nefarious outfit who receives a genuine and reliable “tip.” His intimate relations with the jockeys, stablemen and all the habitues of the training stables and racing grounds, are such that he is generally able to pick out a winner, and to discount the results of a race in advance. Thus assured he skillfully sends out his touts to give “tips” that will bring the most grist to his mill, that is to say, to industriously disseminate the belief that that horse will win, which he knows has no chance of success. Under this influence the amateur sport, and the average patron of the racing ground or pool-room, will generally plunge largely on the horse they imagine is to bring them a rich booty, while the pool-seller looks on complacently, knowing that all the money in the strong box belongs to him as surely as if the race had been already run.

The methods employed by these pool-room experts are of the most ingenious and daring order. For instance, at a race in St. Louis recently, the book maker had a secret wire brought into his pool-room, by which he received the actual result several seconds sooner than the news sent by the public wire which supplied the official record. In these few brief seconds of opportunity, and in the intense excitement always prevailing at this point, he was enabled to pocket thousands by “betting on a sure thing.” In short there is no device nor subterfuge, nor daring rascality of any description, to which he will not bend the most astute cunning and the greatest energy in order to extend his thieving operations upon the pockets of those innocent pigeons who lend themselves to be plucked under the miserable and baseless delusion that the pool-room is run “on the square” and that he is getting even a gambler’s chance in the unequal contest with the skillful and audacious knavery with which he is led to contend. Indeed, it is remarkable that men of courage, of resources, of acute perception, of tireless energy, of a self poise that never fails, and an activity of intellect equal to any emergency, as most of these successful sharpers are, should not have preferred to bring their talents to bear upon honorable and lawful occupations in which they could not fail to apply those qualities to the greatest advantage.

In every pool room, amid the conglomeration of representatives of “queer” industries always there to be found, is invariably a liberal sprinkling of “cappers” or “touts.” These are the lowest and most contemptible of all the instrumentalities employed by the turf sharp, and the most dangerous because they always do their work in the guise of pretended friendship, and under the basest kind of betrayal of confidence. The lowest kind of a bunko steerer is a gentleman by comparison with this most contemptible of all the crawling things that infest this footstool. We have given some insight into the character of his operations. Let it be remembered that every tout is in the employ of the book maker; that every man who offers another a “tip” on a race-course or at a pool room is a “tout,” beyond any peradventure, and be certain that his frank and apparently generous and off-handed advances are but in reality the means by which he intends to aid in the operation of picking your pocket. He is a liar by instinct, by choice and by occupation, and no matter how engaging his manners, or however plausible his representations, you may safely set him down as a thief, and deal with him accordingly. His very approach is an insult to the intelligence of every man whom he seeks to “play for a sucker.”

The amount of money abstracted from the business industries, and incomes of the people, mainly of the cities, of the United States, is simply something appalling in its magnitude. In all the great centers of population in the United States: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Louisville, Kansas City, Denver, New Orleans and San Francisco, the depredations of the gambler will be found to run into the millions in each case. In Chicago and New York it is impossible to make any estimate. The actual truth, if it could be revealed, would no doubt be deemed incredible. One fact, however, that is definitely ascertained, will give some idea of the magnitude of this crime against society, in the western metropolis. At the Fall meeting at Washington Park, in 1889, forty-two gamblers paid to the track authorities, $100 each per day for the term of twenty-four days, the duration of the meeting. That amounted to $100,800. In addition to that they had to pay for the most expensive kind of living at the highest-priced hotels; and had to pay for “police protection,” touters, cappers and hangers-on, salaries that professional men would envy, and had to make high-rollers’ profits. Altogether, there cannot be a question that these sharpers, for the privilege for which they paid over $100,000, must have taken away out of the city, in the neighborhood of half a million of dollars for this one meeting alone. This would represent at a fair computation $2,000,000 for the year, without taking into account the enormous amount constantly being drained from the community by the other gambling operations.

In addition to these features—which certainly those responsible for the social, moral and material welfare of the community do not seem to realize—it is to be remembered that when the race-meeting has closed, when the principal thieves with their robber retainers have departed for the scene of their next activity, and good people heave a sigh of relief that their boys or their clerks or their students are now no longer in danger of this temptation, their deadly influence still remains. While the races, for instance, are progressing in St. Louis, the pool-rooms, the billiard rooms and saloons, by use of the telegraph, continue to keep alive the taint of turf gambling, to keep the temptation to our youth ever present, and to make easy for all, the deadly descent to Avernus. Here, too, the work of the skin gambler, the jackal of his tribe, is made particularly easy. Fraternities of these fragrant personalities are organized, who between the different cities keep each other “posted” on the true tips on races, and give the very latest and most reliable information as to the probabilities of each race. The dupe bets upon the regular “blackboard” reports; the scoundrel upon a dead certainty. The robber rejoices in his good fortune; the victim curses his “bad luck,” perhaps, but has no suspicion that he has not had an even chance upon the board.

If any young man, or old man for that matter, who is in the least degree fastidious upon the point of keeping decent company, will but get some one acquainted with the character of pool-room assemblies, or take the trouble to exercise judgment for himself, he will learn or perceive that which will make him take himself speedily away. Here all the proper distinctions of society are violated, and the lawyer or doctor, lost by his infatuation to self-respect, may be observed taking “pointers” from a ragged and ill-smelling stable-boy. The banker, with the cashier of his competitor, are jostling with a frowsy bootblack; the business man discusses the board with the pickpocket; the thief and gambler is everywhere. The odor of state prison associations is upon many. The pimp, the bummer, the thug, the midnight housebreaker and the daylight lawbreaker, all mingle in the throng with the representatives of business probity and youthful innocence—with the prop and stay of one family, and with the hope and pride of another household. If it were not for the fascination that centers upon the betting board and renders decency oblivious to its shameful surroundings, no man of sense, with a spark of manhood or self respect about him, could, for a moment endure the contamination of surroundings so degrading. The scene is one of the most repulsive that any pure mind could conceive. It is the monstrous anomaly presented of the vesture of life with warp of virtue and woof of vice.

While many of the evil influences which are organized in the pool-room to defraud, deceive and destroy, are common to the race-track, yet the latter possesses nefarious peculiarities whose features ought to be well scanned, and therefore carefully avoided. At the race track, while the vile types of character which infest the pool-room are to some extent visible, they have not the same freedom of communication nor familiarity with the visitor to the track as is the case in the pool-room. In the pure outer air they shrink from intrusion upon respectability, and are content to flock by themselves. Here it is, the well-dressed thief, the polite and polished tout, the sanctimonious sharper, and the keen and experienced shark, who carry on the operation of fleecing the victims of turf rapacity are to be found. The scene in itself is far from repulsive, as is the case with the pool-room. On the contrary, it is a kaleidoscopic view of human society of every decent grade seen in its most attractive form. Costly equipages, daintily dressed fair ladies, bright colors, the beauty of flowers and the fragrance of delicate perfume; men, each one dressed, like McGinty, in his best suit of clothes, moving hither and thither in constant bustle, flutter and excitement, the busy hum of multitudes of voices and the general and exhilarating impression of life, movement and animation, combine to give the race-course attractions that are apt to obscure its deadly menace to honor, honesty and morality. Looking beneath this fair exterior, however, we find a very charnel house, reeking foul with infamy and fraud.

Here we may observe the lady of fashion in her costly equipage stopping to despatch her coachman for a card, and to take instructions for a tip. Of course he gets the tip, for he knows where to go for it. He and the tout are pals, and after the lady shall have lost every one of her eager and confident ventures and leaves the ground with pocket-book light but disappointment heavy in her heart, we may get a glimpse at the decorous coachee as he smiles softly to himself, and thinks upon the liberal portion of his mistress’ money he will have to divide with the tout in the evening. Ladies who visit the race-track to bet are carefully “spotted;” their servants are suborned, and they become the very easiest and silliest victims that fall to the lot of the “fancy.”

A common swindle in the crowd at the pool-seller’s stand at the track is the eager and excited young man who is victimized by a brace of sharpers. They have watched him and sized him up; they recognize when he is ripe enough to pick and then dexterously perform the operation of gathering him in. “Bet two to one on Susie G.,” cries Mr. Verdant Green, after a short argument with his elbow neighbor. “I’ll take you,” retorts the other, counting out his bills, “we’ll put the money into the hands of this gentleman here.” Benevolent-looking rascal, who has been abstractedly looking the other way, is appealed to and consents to be the depository of the wagers. The race is on; excitement becomes intense; everybody is straining eyes upon the flying horses. Not so the confidential stake-holder and his friend. They have gone from the gaze of Mr. Verdant Green—“though lost to sight, to memory dear.” If they could be found ten minutes later they might be discovered in the act of dividing an easily earned “swag.” This kind of swindle is as old as the flood. But all do not read the newspapers, and, as the gams say, “there’s a sucker born every minute.” That is a cardinal doctrine with them, and they ought to believe in it firmly, for does not their experience seem to prove it? No one, however, who has read this book, whether he read newspapers or not, will be liable to be deceived by this simple fraud.

One of the very worst features that attend race meetings is the unavoidable presence, at every convenient point of proximity to the race track, and lining every approach and avenue to the central scene, of all the known skin games of which the reader of this book will have been afforded ample knowledge elsewhere. Here assemble the three-card-monte swindler, the shell-game shark, the wheel of fortune fakir, and in short every conceivable representative of the smaller forms of swindling by means of the practice of gambling. They cannot, it is true, get into the enclosure. Race-track representatives draw the line of its virtue there. True they are not a whit worse than their brethren inside, who play for higher game. Both are merely plundering honest people by means of gambling schemes. It is the case of the pot saying to the kettle, “Keep off; I fear you may besmut me.” But the shell game man and his confreres do not hanker to be within the sacred high fence. They can catch their kind of suckers just as well outside, as they come and go; and many a confiding innocent beside, who has not enough money to buy a seat on the grand stand, nor to make a bet on the race, has yet sufficient to lose by a turn of the wheel. They are not particular, bless you, these smaller knaves. They do not want the earth. So long as they get all the sucker has got, even though it be but a little, they are content.

Again, there are cases where the winning horse actually has become sick; so sick that he has had to be scratched, or been compelled to fail in even getting a “place,” and that even where the stable has been watched night and day by a man with a blunderbuss. Of course everybody knows, including the dupes who have laid their money on him, that the favorite has been “dosed.” Some suspect that the watcher may have been bribed by the enemy, and permitted his care to be drugged for a fee. It might be; but the odds are in favor of his innocence. The experienced mind will look for a larger villain. There was a big sum of money on the race: it would be an easy matter for the owner of the horse winning to scratch him, or allow him to be beaten, and win more than was on the board and in the stakes. Horses have been sold out by their owners, on American and English race courses, and will be again, so long as knavery lasts in the form of gambling on horse racing. And when you observe that said owner is particularly tumultuous and volcanic in the expression of his wrath, and encrimsons the surrounding air with richly embroidered profanity, then you may be tolerably sure that you might reach the secret of the case if you could only get deep down into his trousers pockets.

In no other human enterprise is it more frequently demonstrated that “the race is not always to the swift.” It is a not uncommon practice for owners of a horse by confederacy with book makers, and other necessary aids, to groom a horse to win a heavy stake upon a dead certainty. First the horse and his capabilities are discovered. Then he is ridden in one or two races to lose. He becomes regarded as a permanent tail-ender. His appearance on the blackboard is greeted with derision. Reports are circulated that the horse is “sick,” particularly just before the event for which he is being held back. He makes his appearance when his time has come. Nobody will bet on him. The wildest sort of odds against him are cheerfully offered, and as quietly gathered in by the confederates of the owner and pool-seller. He takes the field and comes in an easy winner in such a handsome manner that old sports who were not in the combine, recognize, with words not loud but deep, as they go down into their pockets to settle, that they have been “sold again.” In this as in all other ways the average bettor or amateur gambler stands no show. He has no chance, though he may think he has. He is simply food for sharks.

As the “king maker” to the claimant to the thrones of the days of old, so the jockey to the horse race, and to the high hopes which rest upon the particular animal in his charge. The jockey is generally a kind of person who would be a stable-boy, a boot-black or a street sweeper, if he were not a jockey. Being a jockey, he is clothed in purple and fine linen, and gets his $10,000 or $12,000 per year—which would pay salaries for two ministers of the gospel of the very first water, or of at least four superintendents of schools. Is the jockey paid this magnificent salary for being a jockey? Not at all; nor is he paid for being honest. It is for being honest to his employer in carrying out his wishes in regard to the horse, as it may happen to be more profitable to the owner to win or lose. Do jockeys ever sell a race? Probably: sometimes in obedience to the orders of the owner, and occasionally on his own account. In the latter event it is generally his last race; but he can afford to retire to an opulent private life, for his reward is exceedingly liberal. Who shall tell when the jockey is riding honestly or dishonestly? He alone knows the minutest shade of the temper and capacity of the horse. Half a nose may lose a race when he has seemed to have done his best. And yet he might have won by a neck had he so elected. The plain amateur, everyday sport who is slated to be swindled in any case, as well as the anxious owner, the vendor of pools, and the maker of books, are all at the mercy of the discretion of the jockey. Hence the frills upon his raiment; hence a salary so large that it is concluded that life can offer him no other temptations. In very many instances, indeed, the jockey is the instrument through whom the thousands of dupes are sold, the owner sometimes directing the robbery, and on other occasions being included in the list of goods delivered. The high-salaried jockey is a part of an evil system. Take away the gambling feature from horse racing, and let us have honest sport, and the jockey would be glad indeed to ride “square” for a dollar a day and found. And there will be no honest competitions of speed on the race-track until the immoral, rascally and thieving element of betting on the result, or gambling, as you may be pleased to term it, has been abolished, either by legal enactment, by public opinion, or by repudiation on the part of the people who now patronize it—in which latter case, the victims refusing to come to the fold to be sheared as they do now, the evil would die for want of pockets to pick.

In the “handicap” race lies one of the great opportunities for rascality on the race track. There is no doubt that some of the events which offer the largest prizes, in which the public takes the deepest interest, and which seem on the surface to be about the fairest tests of all for a square contest of speed, have become masterpieces of organized scoundrelism. The theory of the handicap is that all the horses are so exactly weighted that they start on a footing of perfect equality in the race, and that if it were possible for them all to cross in an exact line at the starting point, they would come under the wire nose to nose. Of course, to secure such an exact start is an impossibility, and the struggle is presumed to be a supreme effort on the part of each jockey to make up the space lost at the start. It makes a grand and thrilling spectacle to witness a handicap race: but it is generally a delusion. They are just going through the motions, and any gentlemen in the combination can tell you when the “start” is declared which horse is destined to come out first at the finish. In cases of crooked races of this kind, the horse is generally selected a season in advance and a combination between certain leading horsemen is made to allow him to be the winner and divide stakes and betting winnings. The stable from which this “dark horse” comes will have generally two or three others in the field, and the selected winner is ridden falsely for a whole season, and given a bad record, so as to give him so ridiculously light a weight at the handicap race that his winning is a comparative certainty. To be sure, other elements of fitness to win the race have been carefully ascertained, and his exact speed and staying qualities are well known to those interested. When he goes into the field a certain winner, he gets lightest weights and the longest odds to be had, and when he comes under the wire he is worth his weight in gold to his owner or managers. Sometimes it happens that there are two cliques working in the dark in this fashion, and then a division has to be made. A private meeting between the two selected horses is had, and this is a race for keeps and in which the best horse wins. Then both parties form a common syndicate, and labor to double the anticipated profits. Being leaders of the turf, they have ample opportunity to gull the public. The sporting papers, or sporting editors are “tipped” to systematically “bear” the winning horse, and to “write up” other horses which appear to give the public a fair chance for winning, or at least an even chance in betting upon the few favorites which have been selected for “stool pigeons,” which are “bulled,” in the estimation of the public without stint. When it comes to the test, the dark horse has a comparative walk-over; the syndicate reaps a golden harvest, and the public can divide the loss between the individual suckers who have been gulled. Sometimes it has happened that a genuine dark horse has honestly won, and these schemers come to grief. But that is as rare as teeth in the mouth of a hen, and the fact remains, generally speaking, that in this as in every other department of betting on the events of the turf, the confiding public is swindled on a deliberate system by which the professional gambler could not lose if he chose, unless he were to conspire actively to attain that end. This, however, there is no fear of, for a more selfish, cold-blooded and rapacious breed of blood-hounds never pursued a defenceless prey.

The author of this work has traveled over most of the surface of the United States, and has set up the green tables in towns and cities in nearly every State in the Union, and in each and every instance he has been compelled to purchase official protection for his unlawful trade; making payments in some cases to mayors; sometimes to the chiefs of police or city marshals, and on other occasions to individual policemenpolicemen. In this way the authority that is invested with the duty of protecting society is suborned and prostituted to the vile end of extending official protection to the very crime which it is its sworn duty to exterminate. That this perversion of public authority is almost universal seems to be unquestionable. We have recently been furnished with a forcible example of this in the great city of Chicago, where it has been strikingly illustrated that when rogues fall out honest men sometimes get their own. For months in the western metropolis efforts had been made to compel the public authorities to the enforcement of the law regarding this vice. It was persistently denied by the local authorities that there was any gambling going on in Chicago, and this in the face of a general public knowledge to the contrary. In order to prove the hypocrisy of the position of the officers of the city government in this matter, a daily newspaper entered upon a crusade upon its own account. Private detectives were hired and raids constantly made for some weeks, resulting in many arrests, the seizure of a large quantity of gaming apparatus and its destruction in the court-rooms of the city. Yet, still the authorities refused to act and continued to ignore the prevalence of gambling rooms throughout the city, even after the press had given lists of names and full information upon which to proceed. It was publicly and very directly intimated that this alleged ignorance on the part of the city government was a matter of bargain and sale—that specific money payments were made by the criminals for immunity from the proper consequences of their criminal operations; that, in fact, the officials of a great corporation had been suborned to become accessory to the operations of the gamblers. One part of this nefarious understanding was that while the races at Washington Park were in progress the down-town pool-rooms should remain closed in order that the race-track swindlers might be enabled to make the most of their opportunities. With the same scrupulous fidelity which is said to characterize transactions between some other violators of the law, this agreement was carried out. Then followed another race meeting at the track of one Corrigan, a noted horseman on the West Side. Corrigan claimed the same privilege of shutting out the pool-room competition as had been extended to the Washington Park club.

The pool-room keepers refused to recognize any obligation of the kind. They claimed that their agreement with the city administration had been completed; that they could not afford to remain longer closed up, and that by reason of their payment of the assessments which had been regularly levied upon them by the representatives of the city administration, they were entitled to continue their business without molestation. Then Corrigan began a war upon them by the aid of a private detective organization, and the shameful fact that the gamblers had the protection of the police force and its management became apparent beyond dispute. Not only was this the case, but the officials who had hitherto placidly ignored general and widespread gambling in the center of the city, became the active and open allies of the city gamblers, and used their legal powers in an endeavor to punish Corrigan by making arrests at the race-track. Corrigan resorted to the courts for protection against this interference, and secured a bill of injunction restraining the Mayor and Chief of Police from interfering with book making at his track. In the bill filed to secure this injunction the whole disgraceful bargain between the representatives of the city’s police force and the crooks and gamblers was distinctly related, alleging a direct compact of corruption by which crime purchased a stipulated protection at the hands of those sworn to uphold and enforce the laws. There is little reason to doubt that this practice is not confined to Chicago. It exists everywhere. It calls for a remedy, because it is a dangerous and deadly menace to morality, and to the security and safety of society. An aroused public opinion is needed everywhere to offset this great evil, and it is one of the earnest purposes of this work that good people may be awakened to the sense of the danger that threatens the public welfare in this particular. The foundation of justice, the fountain of the law, are thus assailed with an unscrupulous boldness that would be incredible if the facts were not beyond dispute. It is impossible to conceive a graver danger to the best interests of the republic than this widespread pollution of the honor of the custodians of law and morality, and the instinct of self-preservation on the part of all the decent elements of society should point the way to a united effort to secure reform and redress.

Year by year the fever of gambling on the races increases in intensity and the range of its operations. Thousands upon thousands go to the races who would not be able to distinguish between a Kentucky thoroughbred and a Miami valley towpath mule. They do not go for the “sport” there is in a splendid contest between the noblest of the brute creation. They go to “speculate,” to “buy pools;” in short, to gamble, in the idiotic hope that by some blind chance they may return a “winner,” with a hat full of gold bought for a silver dollar. In fact they go out sheep and they return home shorn. Speaking of the recent universality of this gambling mania, a story goes that lately a St. Louis wholesale merchant’s cashier came to him one day and said:

“I should like to get away this morning sir; my sister is to be married to-day.”

“Certainly, certainly,” said the good-natured merchant.

Presently came the book-keeper, with a rueful countenance, who said:

“I’m feeling very unwell, sir, and if you could spare me, I’d like to be excused for to-day.”

The amiable merchant cheerfully gave the requested permission. Shortly after the errand boy appeared.

“Please, sir; my grandmother died last night, and she’s to be buried this afternoon. Please may I go home?”

“To be sure, my boy,” said the merchant. “Sorry for your mother; here’s a quarter for you.”

“Well,” soliloquized the merchant, “since they’re all gone, I might as well shut up shop. I guess I’ll call and see the doctor to-day.”

At the doctor’s he got word that the physician had just been called away to visit a patient in the country, so he concluded to do some business with his lawyer. At the latter’s office he discovered that the man of law had gone to file a paper in the probate court.

“Well, if I can’t see anybody,” said he to himself, “I might just as well go over to the races awhile.”

As he approached the grand stand he observed astride the roof a small animate object, which closer inspection proved to him was his office boy, who was thus attending his grandmother’s funeral. In front of the stand stood the doctor holding a roll of bills in one hand, and shouting for bets on his favorite horse. Up on the stand he observed the lawyer wildly swinging his hat and hallooing like a maniac. Passing around the corner of the stand he came upon his sick clerk and the one who was marrying his sister, each with a schooner of lager in his hand and in an evidently hilarious condition.

“Well,” mused he, “King David was a good judge of human nature when he said, ‘All men are liars.’”

There is one topic more that may appropriately be used to conclude this chapter, and that is the recalcitrancy to the highest welfare of the people, and the best interest of true public morality, of the most powerful instrument for good or evil that to-day exists. The press of the country is not only fully cognizant of the deplorable evils that arise from gambling on the turf, but lends to it countenance, encouragement and aid; and it does so undoubtedly for the money there is in it. The newspapers spread page after page of the turf and its events over their daily issues. The attractions and the interest of the race meetings are set forth with all the skill at their command. They become agents of thieves by publishing “pointers” on the races, and giving advice to bettors which is no more honest nor reliable than that of the sharks of the pool-room. They are thus false to their high mission; false to their lofty responsibilities, which should in all things guide and direct; false to the interests of society, and to the welfare of their readers and patrons. Surely it is time to call a halt in the prostitution of this noble influence to the purposes of race track gambling and systematic knavery. The sordid influence which leads them to become an active party to the debauchery of public morals would no doubt give them the cohesion in action that grows out of a common source of plunder; but newspapers are amenable to one influence—that of a united public opinion. Let the ministers of the gospel, the natural guardians of our morality; the teachers, the parents, and all good men everywhere, bring a united and emphatic protest to bear upon the press, to induce it to desist from encouraging this national crime, and from familiarizing the youth of America with the methods and fascinations of turf gambling, and we may yet hope to see the newspapers of the land stand upon this question on the side of the family hearth, and of God and morality.

The origin of the commercial exchange is coeval with the beginning of commerce. According to that eminent Oriental scholar and historian, Rawlinson, the city of Babylon contained several of these marts, each devoted to the sale of some particular description of merchandise, and Herodotus intimates that one of them was set apart exclusively to the sale of wheat, corn, barley, millet and sesame. Athens and Rome also had their exchanges, and during the middle ages the traders of Venice were wont to assemble in the Rialto. Marseilles boasted of a Chamber of Commerce in the fifteenth century, and as early as 1566 London merchants were accustomed daily to convene in the open air at various localities in Lombard Street, until the erection of the present Royal Exchange, and to-day exchanges or bourses are among the prominent commercial features of every great European city.

The idea of a commercial exchange germinated in the United States before the war of the American Revolution. Here, as in Europe, the basis of every mercantile exchange is a voluntary union of business men, who deem it for their mutual interest regularly to assemble in some convenient locality, for the purpose of effecting the sale of commoditiescommodities or securities, and of profiting by the fluctuations in market prices. Stock exchanges, produce exchanges, chambers of commerce and boards of trade are all essentially identical in character, the principal point of difference being the nature of the commodities bought and sold.

The New York Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1768, is the oldest organization of this kind in this country. Similar institutions were established in Baltimore in 1821, and in Philadelphia in 1833. In 1858 there were ten chambers of commerce and twenty boards of trade between Portland and San Francisco. In 1865 these bodies organized what is known as the “National Board of Trade.” In this association are represented Albany, Baltimore, Boston, Buffalo, Charleston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, Dubuque, Louisville, Milwaukee, Newark, New Orleans, New York, Oswego, Peoria, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Portland, Providence, Richmond, St. Louis, St. Paul, Toledo, Troy and Wilmington.

As an institution, the commercial exchange has been productive of some good, but much harm. If restricted in its scope to the legitimate purposes of commerce, it is unquestionably of the highest benefit to the business world. When its operations are diverted into illegitimate channels it becomes a source of incalculable injury to society. As a great market place, it plays an important part in modern civilization; as a gigantic agency for the promotion of gambling in the commodities of the world, it is a snare, a delusion and a curse.

Not all the gaming hells of the country combined afford facilities for gambling equal to those furnished by these organizations. The faro dealer places a limit upon the stakes wagered; upon the floor of ’Change one may bet without limit. Not everyone can obtain admittance to the gilded salon of the tiger; the commission merchant, or broker, who does business upon the Stock Exchange or Board of Trade accepts orders from all comers. The character of the transactions in which his principals engage is to him a matter of indifference, his interest being centered in their frequency and extent.

To one who is not versed in the methods of conducting trading in the mercantile exchange, the jargon of the ordinary journalistic report of a day is unmeaning gibberish. “Longs” and “shorts,” “puts, calls and straddles,” “scalpers” and “plungers,” a “squeal,” a “squeeze,” an “unloading,” are terms as destitute of significance as though they were words from a foreign tongue. Yet the mode of doing business is not so complicated that any man of average intelligence need fail to grasp it. The author—as he has already stated in his autobiography—was once connected with a firm operating on the Chicago Board of Trade, and as such, acquired an intimate acquaintance with the modus operandi of its dealings, and he believes that his work would be incomplete should he ignore the marble palace through whose noiselessly swinging doors so many thousands have entered upon the path of shame which leads to ruin. Not that the Chicago Board of Trade is either worse or better than the score of similar institutions scattered through the country; nor is it intended to select that organization as the object of special animadversion. The methods of all commercial exchanges are, as has been said, substantially identical.

Members of these bodies may be classified on any one of several general principles. One system of classification has relation to the character of their operations; in other words, all members may be divided into two classes, the first comprising those who venture on their own account (popularly known as “speculators”), and the second embracing those who buy or sell only on the receipt of orders from outsiders (i. e., brokers). Under another system, members may be classified as those who wish to enhance the prices of commodities on the one hand, and those who, on the other, seek to depress market quotations. The former are technically known as “bulls,” and the latter as “bears.” These sobriquets are derived from the well-known propensities of the two descriptions of animals, the one to hoist and the other to pull down. A “bull” is one who seeks to advance prices; a “bear” one who strives to lower them. The distinction between “longs” and “shorts” is substantially of the same nature. A “long” is a speculator who, believing that the price of a certain commodity is destined to advance, buys freely in anticipation of a rise. It follows that he is naturallynaturally, if not inherently, a “bull.” On the other hand, a “short,” judging that quotations are destined to decline, sells wherever he can find a purchaser. He, naturally, is a “bear.” It must not be forgotten, however, that neither of these parties for a moment actually expects either to receive or deliver the articles which he buys or sells; and the reason for this apparently inconsistent statement will be explained hereafter.

With these few prefatory words of explanation, we will pursue the course of the speculator, after which will be given a definition of the slang terms used, and following this the reader will find a concise description of the adventitious agencies employed in the manipulation of the market.

And first, as to the speculator: He may fall within either one of two categories—the professional or the occasional. Yet even under the general caption of professional speculators, operators may be divided into two classes. One embraces men whose large wealth enables them to contrive and engineer what is popularly known as a “corner;” the other includes those who follow in their wake, believing that they can discern their intentions, and laying the flattering delusion to their souls that they can presage the course of prices. The professional speculator, as being the “larger fish,” should first claim our notice. He it is who originates and conducts “corners,” by which term is meant the forcing up of prices for any given commodity to a point far beyond their legitimate value, with a view to enriching the few at the expense of the many. Men of this stamp ordinarily associate with themselves kindred spirits, whose natural bent is the same as their own, and whose capital may prove of value in carrying out their schemes. The combination having been formed, the first objective point is the selection of some commodity or stock to “corner.” The choice having been made, the next step is, quietly and unostentatiously to buy all of it that can be purchased. Let not the unsophisticated reader for a moment suppose, however, that the syndicate thus formed proposes to buy the article in question at current rates. Far otherwise. Prices must be depressed, and there is an obvious way in which to effect this result. Every market in the world is supposed to be governed by the normal relations between supply and demand. It follows that free offerings of any commodity are likely to reduce its quotable value. What, then, are the tactics of the “operator”? Evidently to offer to sell freely. Under the influence of the precipitation of large lots, prices recede, and the speculator is shrewd enough to purchase “at the bottom of the market.” Of course he does not expose his policy by buying such enormous quantities in his own name. He has recourse to firms doing a strictly commission business, of whom he employs a multiplicity, and who always refuse to disclose the name of their principal—not from any high sense of honor, but from motives of self-interest, for the simple reason that such exposure would result in a peremptory withdrawal of business. Having secured the desired quantity of the stock or commodity selected, the clique proceeds to advance the price, not abruptly but gradually, selling a little here and buying a little there, the object being the mystification of the miscellaneous dealers. At last comes what is known as the “squeeze.” The cabal having all, or at least the great preponderance, of the article where they can, if they choose, call for its immediate delivery, refuse to entertain any offers at less than the limit fixed. The consequence is that the “shorts”—i. e., the men who have sold to the syndicate—are compelled to settle at the price to which the coalition has forced quotations. The method of operation can be best illustrated by a suppositious case. Let us suppose—simply by way of illustration—that a coterie of dealers in grain resolve to force up the price of wheat, although not to localize the illustration, we might assume the formation of a “corner” on some one of the numerous stock exchanges with which the country is blessed (?), or cursed. But let us take the Chicago Board of Trade, with whose methods the author is most familiar: Let us suppose that the article to be “cornered” is “July wheat,” and that the combination has been formed in March. Resort is had to the tactics above explained. Wheat for July delivery is first depressed, then bought, and in the end sold without regard to its inherent value, but solely with a view to what the “shorts” may be forced to pay. The profits of such “corners,” thus constructed, are sometimes enormous. Yet, as in the game of faro, the most expert dealer is sometimes put to heavy loss by the combination which is playing against the bank; so even the machinations of the strongest and shrewdest operators are brought to naught either by a combination of brighter minds, by a failure carefully to guard every weak spot, or, it may be, by very chance. The same elements are present in both games, faro and stock-jobbing. These corners are conceived in cupidity, carried on in deceit, and consummated in heartlessness; yet there are not wanting those who affirm that the commercial exchange is the very prop and bulwark of American commerce! That the exchange, in its legitimate scope, affords an easy and safe way of doing business, cannot be denied; that its practical operation is to foster speculation and encourage reckless gambling is equally indisputable.

This assertion seems, on its face, perhaps, ill-considered, yet it is abundantly justified by facts. We have, thus far, considered only the tactics of the professional “operator.” Let us, for a moment, consider the fortune (or misfortune) that awaits the occasional speculator. The latter closely resembles the man who plunges, headlong, into the Niagara rapids without even a rudimentary knowledge of the art of swimming. Like a chip, he sports upon the crest of the eddying waters of the whirlpool, until, gradually drawn nearer and nearer toward the centre, he is sucked into its very vortex, sinking to reappear no more. Yet this comparison is weak. The outside speculator who fancies that he can buy or sell on “pointers,” (i. e. private information) given him by parties well-posted, very nearly approaches an idiot in the matter of intelligence. Let us take, as a single illustration, a case which fell under the author’s personal observation. The experience of the victim (whom we will call Jones) is by no means exceptional. Mr. “Jones” was advised by a friend (?) that “old Higgenbotham” had bought up all of a certain article and that within sixty days prices were destined materially to appreciate. Naturally “Mr. Jones” found his interest, as well as his cupidity stimulated. What would his friend recommend him to do? “Buy, of course; and buy heavily,” was the answer. “But I don’t know how to buy,” objected Jones. “Why,” replied his advisor, “that’s the easiest thing in the world, Q X & Z, one of the best houses in the street, are particular friends of mine. Take my card and go down and see them. They’ll use you right.” The unfortunate “Jones” listened to the siren song. He interviewed Q X & Z, by whom he was received with distinguished consideration. The firm of brokers explained to him how he could, by depositing with them a “margin” of five per cent. on the par value of his prospective purchase, become the putative owner of twenty times the amount of his deposit. Of course he must buy for future delivery, this not being a “cash” transaction. But there was no doubt that prices would advance. Oh, certainly not.

Mr. “Jones” was naturally a little timorous, being unaccustomed to speculation. He advanced a few hundred dollars, however, by way of “margins,” and at the conclusion of the “deal,” found himself winner by a handsome sum. His experience was a revelation to him. He ventured again and again, with varying success. Finally he found himself heavily interested on the wrong side of the market. He was assured that prices must necessarily take a turn, and he could ill afford to lose the sum already risked.

To understand the nature of the risk which he had incurred, however, some explanation of the method of speculating by means of margins is necessary. To illustrate: let us suppose that a certain article—say, wheat is to-day at $1.00 per bushel, of course 10,000 bushels are nominally worth $10,000. Imagine a legitimate purchase of such a quantity at these figures. Should the price advance one cent per bushel, the 10,000 bushels would be worth $10,100; should it fall off one cent the wheat would be worth only $9,900. In the former case the buyer would win $100; in the latter he would lose a like sum. In the case of a bona-fide sale, the whole of the $10,000 is actually paid. In a speculative transaction the purchaser only advances a part of the price, usually a few cents per bushel, which is placed in the hands of his broker, who gives him a receipt therefor. The commission merchant conducts the business in his own name, assuming personal responsibility for the payment of the money. To protect himself against possible loss, which may result from violent fluctuations in the market, he insists upon a marginal deposit as above stated. Should the depreciation in value approach the limit of the margin, the speculator is called upon to advance more money. If he fail to do so, and the decline continues, the broker protects himself by selling out the article bought, charging his customer with the loss sustained, together with his own brokerage charges, and handing over to him whatever small balance may remain to his credit. In the case of a speculative sale, precisely the same methods are employed, except that as the seller’s gain is derived from a depreciation and his loss through an advance, when the “margin” is in danger of being “wiped out,” the broker closes the transaction by buying on the customer’s account instead of selling.

But to return to the experience of Mr. “Jones.” As has been said he had ventured largely, and he found himself confronted with financial ruin. Although engaged in a money-making business, he had plunged so deeply into the maelstrom of speculation that his capital was seriously impaired. What was to be done? To withdraw meant bankruptcy; yet, how could he go on? Only one way presented itself to him. He was the executor of his brother’s will and the guardian of his brother’s minor children. The trust funds placed under his control might be utilized to avert impending disaster. Not that he would wrong the orphans whose patrimony had been committed to his care, but he would temporarily borrow the money of the estate, to be returned with interest, within a few weeks. He succumbed to the temptation and the result need hardly be told. The combination formed for the purpose of controlling prices absorbed these funds as it had the others, with the same relentless rapacity as do the knights of the green cloth the last hard-earned dollar of the day-laborer. The day of settlement arrived, the bubble burst and the unfortunate man found himself buried fathoms deep in dishonor and ruin. Not only was he penniless, but he realized that wherever he went the finger of scorn pointed out his every step. A temperate man before, he plunged headlong into dissipation. His wife found herself compelled to leave him, and to-day, stripped of fortune, bereft of family, deserted by friends, he walks the streets with faltering tread, aimlessly and hopelessly; living God knows how; hanging about bucket-shops and pool-rooms, considering that a fortunate day on which, honestly or dishonestly, he can earn half a dollar.

Nor is this an isolated case. The speculator who has been alluded to is but a type of a class of men whose name is legion. The ruined reputations of confidential clerks, cashiers and administrators of trust funds mark the path of the reckless operator as milestones mark the causeway. The terrible fascination of gambling, whether through speculation or cards, when once the votary has succumbed to it, can be most fitly compared to that of the opium habit. The victim of this body-debasing, soul-destroying vice is willing to risk his hopes, not only for time but for eternity, on the gratification of his appetite. So does the devotee of the faro table or the man infatuated with the allurements of the exchange stake his life, his honor, his very salvation upon the turn of a die or the rise or fall of a particular stock.

Better, far better, were it for the man who enters a gaming resort that his first wager prove unsuccessful; far happier would he be who determines to “speculate in futures” did his first venture result in heavy loss. In either case the influence of failure would prove a deterrent sufficiently powerful to avert years of future misery, if not ultimate destruction.

The technical nomenclature of the exchange—sometimes termed the “slang of the street”—which, as has been remarked, is incomprehensible to the uninitiateduninitiated, in itself affords some key to the nature of the business transacted. Some of the most common terms are here defined, although to enumerate them all would swell the dimensions of the present chapter beyond the limits assigned it.

A “scalper” is an operator who makes it his practice to close his transactions as soon as he can see a small profit, say a quarter of one cent. His operations are neither more nor less than betting on a rise or fall in prices.

The “guerilla” is a species of the genus “scalper,” few in number, and makes a specialty of dealing in stocks and commodities: So unsavory is the reputation of this class that it has fixed the appellation of “Hell’s Kitchen” and “Robber’s Roost” upon certain localities in the New York Stock Exchange.

Still another class is composed of those who strive to enrich themselves by the fictitious rise and fall of a particular stock in which they constantly deal.

The terms “long” and “short,” when used as adjectives, have been already explained, and their signification when employed as nouns is practically the same. A “long” is a speculator who has bought heavily in anticipation of a rise. A “short” is one who has sold freely in expectation of a decline. The action of the former is called “loading.”

“Forcing quotations” is keeping up prices by any means whatever. When this is accomplished by the dissemination of fictitious news or the circulation of unfounded rumors, the operator is said to “balloon” prices.

A speculator is said to “take a flyer” when he engages in some side venture; he “flies kites” when he expands operations injudiciously; he “holds the market” when he prevents a decline in prices by buying heavily; he “milks the street” when he manipulates so skilfully that they rise or fall at his pleasure; he “unloads” when he sells the particular stock or commodity of which he is “long;” he “spills stock” when he offers large quantities with a view to lowering or “breaking” prices; if he is successful in these tactics he is said to “saddle the market.”

A “bear” is said to be “gunning” a stock when he employs all his energy and craft to “break” its price. He “covers,” or “covers his shorts,” when he buys to fulfill his contracts. He “sells out” a man by forcing prices down so that the latter is obliged to relinquish what he is “carrying,” perhaps to fail.

The nature of a “corner” has been already set forth in detail. The operator or clique organizing and managing it is said to “run” it. The day when final settlement must be made between the opposing parties engaged in such a transaction is termed “settling day.” If the “bears” are forced to settle at unusually high prices they are said to be “squeezed.” The “squeeze” which has followed many a corner has precipitated not a few wealthy men into financial ruin. This circumstance, however, is usually a matter of utter indifference to the manipulators. The success of a “corner” is sometimes prevented by what is known as a “squeal,” or revelation of the secrets of the pool or clique by one of its members. Sometimes the plans of the organizers of a “corner” are brought to naught by a “leak” in the pool, that is, by one of the members secretly selling out his holdings. Of course, a “corner” can be formed only on what is known as a “future,” or future delivery, by which is meant the sale and purchase of some stock or commodity to be delivered at some period in the future.

Yet another form of gambling very common upon the floors of stock and commercial exchanges is known as dealing in “puts,” “calls” and “straddles.” When a person buys a “put,” he pays a stipulated sum for the privilege of selling to the party to whom it is paid, a certain quantity of some particular stock or other article, within a fixed time, at a designated price. Thus A might pay to B one hundred dollars for the privilege of selling him one hundred shares of Union Pacific stock at a stipulated price, within ten days. As a matter of course, the price named is always a little below the current quotation ruling at the time the contract is made, i. e., the day upon which the “put” is bought. If, for instance, the “put” is sold at 80 cents on that day, and the market declines to 75, A might tender to B the one hundred shares, and the latter would be compelled to take them at that price. In such a case A would have gained five dollars per share, or five hundred dollars in all, provided he had “covered his shorts,” i. e., bought in the stock which he had already put, at the latter figure. As a matter of fact, neither party contemplated an actual delivery. The market having declined, A’s net gain is, of course, only four hundred dollars, he having already paid one hundred dollars to B. This appears an easy method of winning money. As a matter of fact, however, experience has shown that very few men win through the purchase of “puts” and “calls.”

A “call” is similar in its general nature to a “put,” but differs from it in that the buyer of the former has the privilege of calling or buying a certain quantity, under the same conditions. The seller of the “put” contracts to buy, and of the “call” to sell, whenever the demand is made.

A “straddle” is a combination of the “put” and the “call,” and is the option of either buying or selling. The cost of these “puts,” “calls,” and “straddles,” which are known as “privileges,” varies from one to five per cent. of the par value of the stock, or the market value of the commodity involved, and depends upon the time they have to run, the range covered, and the activity and sensitiveness of the market.

It is claimed in behalf of these privileges that they are, in their essence, really contracts of insurance, and as such are entirely legitimate. The general public, however, has always regarded them as a complex system of betting, and believes that they constitute one of the most pernicious features of the exchange. The fallacy of the argument in their favor, above outlined, becomes apparent when it is remembered that the law regards all contracts of insurance as being one form of gambling, and sanctions and enforces them only on grounds of public policy. The burden of proof is upon the defenders of “puts” and “calls” to show that, even if it be conceded that they are contracts of insurance, they can be justified as being necessary to the furtherance of commerce or the welfare of society. That they do not tend to promote commerce is shown by the fact that neither party to the transaction for a moment contemplates the actual delivery of the article bought or sold. It is essentially a wager between two individuals as to the future course of the market, one betting that prices will advance, and the other that they will decline. The absurdity of claiming that they promote the general welfare of society, (were such a claim advanced), may be easily demonstrated by calling attention to the economic consideration that the winner has done nothing to produce the money which he pockets, and by pointing to the pecuniary loss and moral debasement which they entail. They sustain somewhat of the same relation to the dealings of the large operators as does the keno room to the faro bank.

The legislature of Illinois, a few years ago, placed the seal of its condemnation upon the practice by making it a misdemeanor to deal in privileges. It is said (although the author is unable to vouch for the truth of the statement), that this virtuous action on the part of the lawmakers was due to the influence brought to bear upon them by a well-known member of the Chicago Board of Trade, who had been dealing extensively in “puts” and “calls,” and had lost heavily. However that may be, the Chicago Board, after permitting the practice for years, adopted a rule prohibiting their sale, and even went to the length of suspending a few members for its violation, among them being one of the most prominent operators upon the floor. This spasm of virtue, however, was not of long duration, and at the present time such privileges may be procured from members of that august body with the greatest ease.

The action of this great Western Exchange in the premises may possibly have been prompted by motives other than a desire to comply with the statutes. Long after the enactment of the law, privileges were sold as freely as before its passage. In time, however, it was found to be a two-edged sword. Operators found it possible to purchase “puts” for the purpose of buying against them, and to buy “calls” with a view to shield themselves from loss when they became “bears.” Thus an army of sellers appeared when the “call” price was reached, and a horde of buyers when the market touched the price at which “puts” had been sold, the consequence being that the range of the market was curtailed. Members objected to tactics which robbed the market of that elasticity so dear to the speculator’s heart. Carping critics say that the virtue of the directors was the outgrowth of disappointeddisappointed self-seeking. In other words—speculation—the very life-blood of the exchange was being curtailed. Hinc illae lachrymae.

But the action of the directors, as was soon found, rendered it possible for certain members, who were willing to incur the risk, to do a thriving business in privileges provided the transactions were secret. Of course firms desiring to obey the rules were at a disadvantage, and legitimate brokerage suffered. There was one obvious, logical conclusion: “Allow every one to engage in the business or no one.” This commended itself to common sense, and a carefully worded resolution was adopted, the practical effect of which, as every one understood it, was virtually to remove the ban from the sale of privileges. Since that time, “puts” and “calls” may be purchased with the same ease as one may pay his taxes.

But let us return to the methods employed in the manipulation of prices. Reference has been already made to the very common practice of attempting to “bull” or “bear” quotations by buying or selling large quantities, or “blocks” of some particular article. There is probably no description of market in the world so extremely sensitive as the commercial exchange. A sale or purchase of any given commodity by certain, well-known operators, is often sufficient to excite its pulse to fever heat. A similar result may ensue from a report that the Secretary of the Treasury contemplates a call of a certain denomination of bonds; that Bismarck had been heard to say that the French blood was too thin and needed a little more iron; that a norther in Texas had killed a herd of cattle; that a few grasshoppers had been seen in the neighborhood of Fargo; or that the mercury was believed to be about to fall in Northern Minnesota. The great speculators, the master minds of these gigantic institutions, are quick to perceive this sensitiveness, and equally prompt to avail themselves of it. Fictitious news is as potent an agency in advancing or depressing prices as is the genuine article, and it is a sad truth that there are not wanting large operators who do not scruple to employ it. It is said—and there is good reason to believe the statement to be true—that there are men at all great commercial centers whose only occupation is the dissemination of unfounded reports, with a view of raising or lowering the prices of certain commodities in regard to which the rise or fall of a fraction of a cent may mean the gain or loss of millions. These manufacturers of fictitious news are said to “wear purple and fine linen and fare sumptuously every day.” The results of their operations are to be found in the wrecking of important financial and corporate interests and the corresponding enrichment of the unprincipled manipulators who employ them.

Some years ago, there came a mysterious rumor to the New York Stock Exchange, that the directors of a certain railroad in the Northwest had decided upon taking a step which could not fail to prove disastrous in the extreme to the interests of the corporation. No one was able to tell just where the rumor originated, yet it found sufficient credence to depress the price of the road’s stock, and to induce free selling. The next day came the refutation of the story; the stock recovered its tone, and the clique in whose interest the lie had been sent over the wires reaped a profit of $60,000. In the slang of Wall Street this was called “a plum.” It is difficult to see the difference in moral turpitude between such tactics as these and “steering” for a “brace” faro bank.

An acquaintance of the author, who served with distinction during the late civil war, on his return home, was employed by a company owning alleged oil lands in Pennsylvania, to superintend the sinking of wells within its territory. The salary was liberal and the duties not arduous. Wells were duly sunk, but no oil discovered, after a time, the gentleman in question received instructions from the headquarters of the company in an Eastern city to telegraph, on a certain day, that a well recently sunk, was yielding a certain large number of barrels per day. This dispatch was to be followed, a day later, by one of similar tenor, making a like assertion in reference to another well. The party who gave these instructions well knew that a certain class of speculators on the exchanges are in the habit of discounting private information through the bribery of telegraph employees, and he placed no little reliance upon this fact for the furtherance of his scheme. The event proved that he had calculated wisely. The telegrams were duly sent and were read by other parties before they reached the man to whom they were addressed. The result was that the company’s stock bounded upward with the celerity of a rubber-ball, and the projectors of the enterprize unloaded at an enormous profit. Of course, the purchasers found out that they had been deceived, but as none of the officers of the corporation had disseminated the report of the finding of oil, it was impossible to attach any responsibility to them.

And yet there are not wanting those who affirm, and stoutly maintain, that without the commercial exchange, business would be brought to a stand-still, and commerce paralyzed; that Boards of Trade and Produce and Stock Exchanges are prime factors in advancing the welfare of the country. And this is said despite the fact that the percentage of legitimate business done is utterly insignificant in comparison with that which is purely speculative in its character. The sales of one agricultural product alone upon the floor of a single mart of this sort for one month alone have been known to equal the production of the entire country for a whole year! Is this legitimate commerce, or is it gambling on the wildest and most extensive scale? Members of various Boards in the United States who assume to do a strictly legitimate business, send out circulars through the rural districts, the sole object of which is to induce the recipients to speculate upon the floor of ’Change. These communications depict, in glowing terms, the ease and certainty with which ignorant countrymen may acquire fortunes in a day, through the purchase of a “put” or a “call,” or a “straddle.” They purport to explain, fully and clearly, the methods of speculating in stocks and grain, and represent the system as simple and easily comprehensible, while the authors know that the system is in itself complex and the issue a venture—at the very best—uncertain. It is not pretended that the transaction contemplates an actual transfer of the commodity from seller to buyer. Is this frank? Is it manly? Is it honest?

Scarcely a decade has passed since the whole country rung with the echoes of the “Fund W” scandal. Unquestionably the men who engineered that gigantic scheme of fraud were not representative members of any commercial exchange, yet it is equally certain that but for the facilities afforded for the perpetration of the fraud through the Exchanges’ methods of doing business, that stupendous swindle would have been impossible. Yet the infatuated speculators who do business through legitimate houses, believe that they can trust their own judgment as to the future of the market! It may be that such folly has its parallel, but it is not to be found in that of the man who stakes his money on the issuance of a particular card from a faro box.

Few of those who have never witnessed the daily routine of business on the floor of an Exchange can conceive the wild uproar, the hubbub, the confusion, the tumultuous excitement, which there reigns supreme. Let us take a glance at one of the best known. During the busy hours of the session the floor of the magnificently proportioned room is crowded. Scattered about at distances more or less regular, are large marble-topped tables, about which gather groups of men engaged in quiet, though sometimes earnest, conversation. These tables contain drawers, in which members, who pay well for the privilege, keep samples of the commodities in which they deal. Hurrying to and fro about the room may be seen brokers and their clerks, carrying in their hands small paper bags, containing samples of grain which has been consigned by growers or other shippers, for sale. Similar bags are strewed all over the tables. Everything indicates activity, and it is evident that important business is being transacted. The sound of the voices of the traders rising from the floor to the visitors’ gallery, joined to the clicking of the myriad of telegraphic instruments, reminds one of the ceaseless hum of bees around a hive, heard in midsummer, when the nodding clover and bending buckwheat invite the tireless workers to taste their sweets.

Such is the scene during the early hours, but as the morning advances the picture changes. In the center of the room are four octagonal “pits,” formed by short flights of steps which rise from the floor on the outside and again descend on the inside. In these so-called pits is carried on the heaviest business of the Exchange. One is devoted to the sale of wheat, another to corn, and a third to provisions, pork, lard, etc. Gradually, as the minutes and hours pass, they fill with an eager crowd of traders, which swells in numbers until the area itself and the steps leading to it, are literally jammed with anan excited throng, yelling, gesticulating, waving their arms and shaking their fists in each other’s faces. The hum has risen to a surge, and to the onlooker in the gallery the scene seems to have been transformed into Bedlam or pandemonium. On the upper row of steps of one of the pits, men stand facing each other, forty feet apart. One raises his hand and makes what appear to be cabalistic signals to the other, who makes some other equally mysterious signs. Then each produces a card on which he makes an entry, and the dumb show is duplicated by others. To understand this pantomime, no less than the significance of these frenzied cries and frantic gyrations of arms and fingers requires an education of peculiar character, the education of the habituÉ of the floor. Each motion of the hand, each turn of a finger has its significance, representing the quantity of the particular commodity sold, and the price at which it is bought. These angry, dissonant voices, proceed from the hoarse throats of opposing factions, one trying to “bull” and the other to “bear” the market, and each striving to rival the other in clamor and persistency. No wonder that the excitement is intense. The entire wheat crop of the country is being sold before it is harvested, and much of it before it is planted, and on transactions of such magnitude a variation in price of even a fraction of a cent, means the gain to one and loss to another of tens of thousands of dollars. Fortunes are accumulated and sunk in an hour. One operator sees wealth within his grasp; another perceives bankruptcy staring him in the face. It is not strange that under such circumstances the strongest passions in the human breast should struggle for mastery, and find vent in expressions as wild as they are exaggerated.

Yet outside this howling, seething, surging crowd, within hailing distance from the center of all this hubbub (were language audible at a distance of thirty feet), sits a row of men, some of them in the prime of life, some of them scarcely past its meridian, others wearing the silver crown of age. Cool, collected, seemingly dispassionate, they exchange conversation which appears to be humorous, to judge from the laughter which it provokes. To the casual observer, they seem to be in the “madding crowd,” but not of it. Yet one who carefully watches their movements may see that from time to time signals are exchanged between some one or other of them and some individual on the steps of the pit. These men, thus sitting apart, are the great operators, those who make prices, and whose every movement is watched, as possibly affording a clue to their intentions. Jealously, however, do they guard their secrets; impassable are their countenances, and imperturbable their demeanor. With the seemingly stolid indifference of the veteran gamester, who sees his last dollar swept from the table by the turn of a card and gives no sign of regret, these men calmly witness the wiping out of a fortune by a rise or fall in prices, and manifest not the slightest indication of emotion.

To the visitor sitting aloft the spectacle is strange, bewildering, fascinating.

But let us descend to the floor, to enter upon which the stranger must obtain a card of admission. Here one passes men who have won largely, but whose countenances betray no symptom of exultation, and others whose losses have been heavy, yet whose laughing faces and merry jests indicate no dissatisfaction either with the world or with life. The busy operators at the telegraph key-board are too much absorbed in their work to give heed to the Babel of confusion around them. Messenger boys scurry hither and thither, in anxious quest of men for whom they bear tidings, perhaps of grave consequence. Suspended from various points about the room are charts, tables and diagrams, relating to almost every conceivable subject, the report and forecast of the Signal Service office; the supply of cereals at every market in the civilized world; the movement of breadstuffs and provisions at home and abroad; the cargoes of steam-ships from American, European and East Indian ports; comparative statements of receipts and shipments; and one thousand and one other matters, a knowledge of which may be of interest to members. On the front of one of the long galleries are huge dials, whose index fingers record the fluctuations of prices in the pit. On days when speculation runs riot and excitement is more than usually rampant, these pointers sway to and fro with a rapidity of movement almost bewildering.

But before we have satisfied our curiosity, or sufficiently indulged our admiration of the completeness of the mechanism of the gigantic machine whose revolutions we have been contemplating, the striking of the great gong indicates that the active business for the day in one of the world’s greatest marts has closed. To one who has regarded the transactions with the indifference of a chance spectator, this sound means little more than the tolling of the bell, which in some high tower marks the hour. But on more than one listening ear upon the floor it falls like the knell of doom. To many a venturesome speculator who has unfortunately placed himself upon the wrong side of the market, it is ominous of a crisis in his affairs which must be promptly met if he is not to be overtaken by ruin, perhaps by disgrace. He must become a borrower, or be publicly posted as being unable to meet his contracts. Perhaps he has already overstrained his credit, and knows that his commercial paper must go to protest. Who can surmise all the varied feelings which the sound of that gong awakens in the breasts of not a few of those who hear it? Yet no sign of emotion is visible in the vast throng of brokers and their principals as they descend the broad marble staircase or hurry to the elevators. They laugh, smoke and chat as though they were returning from a merrymaking, rather than from a gathering where millions of money had been staked, and where, perchance, some of them had sold their honor for a mess of pottage.

The charter powers bestowed upon some of these commercial corporations is enormous, rivalling those conferred upon courts of law. Thus, the charter of the Chicago Board of Trade contains the following provision:

Section 7, after providing for the appointment of a “Committee of Reference and Arbitration,” and a “Committee on Appeals,” and fixing their jurisdiction, further provides that “the acting chairman of either of said committees, when sitting as arbitrators, may administer oaths to the parties and witnesses, and issue subpoenas and attachments compelling the attendance of witnesses, the same as justices of the peace, and in like manner directed to any constable to execute.”

Section 8 contains provisions of an equally extraordinary character. It reads as follows: “Whenever any submission shall have been made, in writing, and a final award shall have been rendered and no appeal taken within the time fixed by the Rules or By-Laws, then, on filing such award and submission with the Clerk of the Circuit Court, an execution may issue upon such award, as if it were a judgment rendered in the Circuit Court, and such award shall thenceforth have the force and effect of such a judgment, and shall be entered upon the judgment docket of said Court.”

The granting of such extra-judicial powers upon men who possess no special aptitude for their exercise is, to say the least, an anomaly in jurisprudence. That a court so constituted should naturally incline to the enforcement of agreements which are, in their essence, gambling contracts, is no more surprising than that juries of unbiased men should set them aside, or that courts, whose aim is to enforce the spirit as well as the letter of the law, should non-suit plaintiffs seeking relief under their provisions. Over and over again have courts and juries declined to regard a sale, the parties to which did not contemplate a bona fide delivery in any other light than as a bet or wager, the collection of which could not be legally enforced. It is a serious question whether an act clothing a loosely organized—if not self-constituted—tribunal with the powers of the highest court of original jurisdiction in a great commonwealth, is not a blot upon the judicial system of the State which sanctions it.

In what has been said, however, the author intends to draw no invidious distinction between the commercial exchanges of the country. As a rule, they occupy the same plane; and in respect of being a blessing or a curse to the country at large, they must stand or fall together. At the same time, the Board of Trade of the Western metropolis has seen fit to take a position which is, to say the least, somewhat anomalous. In the preamble to its “Rules and By-Laws” it declares that among its objects are: “to inculcate principles of justice and equity in trade * * * *” and “to acquire and disseminate valuable commercial and economic information.”

As regards the “principles of justice and equity in trade” which are “inculcated” by commercial exchanges generally, nothing more need be said. Were the transactions on their floors confined to actual sales at prices influenced only by legitimate means and natural causes, there can be little doubt that they would prove potent factors in the furtherance of commerce and advancements of its best interests. It is not in this aspect that the author is considering them. His reprehension of their practices is predicated upon the other, and broader, side of their character, i. e., their speculative side. It can scarcely be called an open question whether it “inculcates principles of justice and equity in trade” for one man to buy up all the wheat in sight (and out of sight too, for that matter) and then force an alleged buyer, but an actual rival whom he has done his best to mislead, to settle with him at a price exceeding by 100 to 150 per cent. the actual value of the commodity.

But it is the “object” last mentioned—the “dissemination of valuable commercial and economic information”—concerning which the exchange in question has taken such a peculiar position. Originally, the “information” at its command, whether “valuable” or otherwise, was “disseminated” with the automatic regularity of clock work. Whether this dissemination was undertaken for the benefit of the public at large, or from motives purely selfish is immaterial in this connection, although the “object” may be, perhaps, inferred from the course of the directors. It was found that places far less pretentious were being opened and were doing a thriving business. Within the shadow of the great tower sprang up an “Open Board,” which attracted speculators who might otherwise have conducted their operations through the channels opened by the more august body. Moreover “bucket shops” (the pernicious character of whose methods will be explained hereafter) multiplied and flourished. The quotations of the regular exchange were as the “vital air” to the smaller concerns. “Withdraw our quotations,” said the directors, “and all competition will come to naught.” A wrangle ensued, followed by litigation in the courts, resulting in the triumph of the more renowned body, the “genuine, old, original Jacobs.” In other words, the “dissemination“dissemination of valuable commercial and economic information,” came to an abrupt and untimely end, and one of the “objects” of the organization, announced to the world with gravity, parade and rhetorical flourish, failed of accomplishment.

And alas, too, for the sincerity and consistency of poor, weak human nature.

Some years since, the president of this same exchange, in congratulating the members upon belonging to the ideal institution of the world, went out of his way to stigmatize all the other exchanges of the country as “bucket shops,” justifying his assertion by the charge that the latter depended for quotations upon that over which he presided, a circumstance which, in his opinion, formed the essential nature of a “bucket shop.” In other words, if the “valuable commercial and economic information” as “disseminated” by one body were used by members of another similar organization, the latter were preying upon the public, setting snares for the unwary and fleecing the ignorant. It is difficult to conceive of any loftier height to which egotism could soar. Of what value are the charts and diagrams to which reference has been made except to “disseminate” among members of this particular exchange the “valuable commercial and economic information” gathered by a kindred organization?

Yet the self-stultification went even farther.farther. At the very moment when the chief executive of this board was indulging in these rhapsodical flights of rhetoric, a determined effort was being made to open, in connection with that institution, as a sort of “side-show,” a stock exchange, where speculation might be carried on for the benefit of brokers and others, which should be based upon “information disseminated by the New York Stock Exchange!” Could inconsistency farther go? To use quotations on grain and provisions is piratical; to take advantage of quotations on stocks derived from a market one thousand miles away is, in every sense, proper and legitimate!

This fact is not mentioned in derision of the particular organization in question, but as an illustration of the absolute selfishness, the unbridled greed for gain, and the instinctive spirit of gambling which form the salient features of the average American commercial exchange as it exists in the present year of grace. For its members, the world is divided into two classes—the exchange and the rest of mankind, the latter having been created for the aggrandizement and glorification of the former. If the dissemination of information result in the enrichment of the master spirits, and the garnering of a golden harvest of commissions by brokers, let the good work go forward; if the publication of private news, however untrustworthy, will, like an ignis fatuus, lead the unsuspecting still further into the morass of blind and reckless speculation, let the “valuable economic information” be scattered broadcast upon the four winds of Heaven. But palsied be the hand which, with unhallowed touch, would desecrate the ark in which is contained the sacred privilege of the members to monopolize the fictitious sale of breadstuffs and provisions, to absorb alike the fortunes of the rich and the earnings of the poor, who like foolish children, chase the rainbow, in the vain hope that at the foot of the arch, so gorgeous in its prismatic tints, they may find the fabled pot of gold.

Yet if the legitimate exchange presents features worthy of condemnation, what shall be said of those veritable plague spots upon the bodybody commercial, those festering cancers which eat into the very heart of socialsocial morals—the “bucket shops”?

These institutions are peculiar to American cities. The more phlegmatic temperament of the denizens of the old world does not lead him into the vagaries of the citizen of the “great Republic,” where wealth fixes caste, and gold is too often worshiped in the place of God. In the United States, more than in any other country, activity, mental as well as physical, is regarded as the chief end of man. In fact, a rocking chair under full swing, would be no inappropriate heraldic national emblem. It is true, as a German paper says of us, that we “chew more tobacco and burst more steam engines than any other nation on earth.” With us, life is restless, and we can find recreation only in excitement. It is this feature of our national character that inclines us to gaming and to speculation in a far higher degree than any other people. Could it be eliminated from our nature the “bucket shop,” like Othello, would find its occupation gone.

Yet the reader, the lines of whose quiet life are cast outside the whirl and turmoil of a great city, may not understand the signification of the term. A “bucket shop” is an establishment where those whose inclinations prompt them to speculate in stocks or produce, but the scantiness of whose means forbids their operating on an extensive scale, may gratify their tastes by risking (and losing) the few dollars which they can ill afford to spare. The epithet “bucket” is a term of derision, having been originally applied to such an institution to imply that a customer might buy or sell a “bucketful” of any commodity which he might select.

These concerns differ only in respect of size and appointment. They are all conducted on one and the same principle. The visitor, on entering, finds himself within a large room, sometimes handsomely, sometimes meanly furnished. Rows of chairs are arranged for the convenience of customers and chance-comers, facing a blackboard. The latter is the indispensible requisite, the sine qua non, without which the transaction of business would be practically impossible. In these chairs are seated men of every age and of nearly all grades of social distinction. Clerks, artisans, merchants and men about town mingle in a sort of temporary companionship, truly democratic. Beardless youths sit side by side with men whose heads have grown bald and whose step has become feeble in a vain chase after a phantom, a chimera, a will-of-the-wisp, always just within the grasp, yet ever eluding the clutch. Here may be met the confidential clerk, who sees nothing wrong in following, at a respectable distance, the example of his employer, who ventures his thousands upon the floor of ’Change. Here one jostles against the decrepit old man, once a millionaire, but who having sunk his fortune in the maelstrom of some great Board of Trade, now passes his waking hours before these blackboards, reckoning that a red-letter day upon which he wins five dollars. And here, too, may be encountered the successful business man, keen of eye, quick of step, alert of perception, who has been drawn hither partly through a desire for speedy wealth, partly through an inordinate craving for the excitement which is not to be found in the legitimate walks of trade. The eyes of all are turned toward the immense board on which, chalk in hand, some attache of the establishment momentarily records some change in quotations of stocks or grain, and which seems to have for them all the fascination of the candle for the moth.

Far different is the scene here presented from that witnessed on the floor of the great Exchange. There all was clamor and apparent confusion; here quiet and decorum reign supreme. The silence is unbroken, save by the sharp tick of the telegraphic instrument and the droning monotone of the blackboard marker. Yet there is one point of resemblance between the habitues of the “bucket shop,” the dealers upon ’Change and the patrons of the gaming hell; one and all, they win without displaying exultation and lose without manifesting regret. In the “bucket shops,” however, the attentive observer may sometimes hear the heavy sigh of dispair from the young man who has been tempted to risk his employer’s money, as he perceives the last dollar of his margin swept away by an unlucky turn of prices; or witness a senile smile of satisfaction momentarily gleam upon the face of the feeble old man who sees himself about to be provided with the means of keeping soul and body together for another day. O, wretched picture of sordid greed, of fallacious hopes, of blank despair! O, sad illustration of the sadder truth that in the contact for the mastery of the heart of man, the evil too often outstrips the good!

But let us examine into the business methods of the proprietors of these resorts where gambling is made easy, and ruin is placed within reach of the humblest. As an illustration, let us suppose that the customer wishes to speculate in some stock, say Missouri, Kansas and Texas. The blackboard shows the fluctuations in quotations as they occur on the New York Stock Exchange. The margin which he is called upon to advance, is one dollar per share, and he may limit his transactions to five shares, if he sees fit. It is a matter of indifference to the proprietor whether he elects to buy or sell; that obliging individual will accommodate himself to his wishes, whatever they may be. Suppose that he buys five shares of the stock in question, at a moment when it is quoted at 16¼. If it rises to 17¼, he may, if he chooses, close his deal, receiving back the five dollars which he advanced as margin, together with another five dollars, the latter representing his profit. If, on the other hand, it drops to 15¼, he loses his margin. It is easy to see that such a transaction as this is nothing but a bet, pure and simple.

The illustration given above is drawn from the smallest description of business done. Yet, as has been said, these dens of iniquity are patronized by the wealthy merchant, as well as by the poor mechanic and clerk. It is on the poorer class of customers that the proprietors depend for their steady income; it is from the wealthier customers that they obtain sums of money which they denominate “plums.”

The manner in which such traders are fleeced by the unscrupulous scoundrels who conduct these institutions may be illustrated as follows: One of them will inform a confiding patron that he has received information from a source which he regards as trustworthy, that some inactive stock—perhaps Denver & Rio Grande—then selling at 9, is about to rise. At his suggestion his customer purchases, let us say, 15,000 shares on a margin of one dollar per share. This done, the proprietor of the “bucket shop” telegraphs to a broker to “sell 3,000 D. & R. G.—quick, quick,” in blocks from 8¾ to 8. The broker who receives the dispatch, either alone or with assistance, offers the stock; the offer is promptly accepted by another broker, to whom the wily manager has telegraphed instructions to buy the stock at the price named. The final quotation, 8, fixes the price, and the sale is promptly reported to the bucket shop by telegraph. The result is that the too trustful customer’s $15,000 advanced as margin, is swept into the coffers of the daring rascal who has perpetrated the fraud, and whose only outlay is the payment of one-fourth of a cent commission on the fictitious sale and purchase.

Let us take another illustration, drawn from a suppositious transaction in wheat. The speculator perceives from the quotations on the blackboard that some future delivery of wheat opened at 86?. Every minute or two new quotations are shown on the board, the apparent tendency of the market being upward. He also sees that during the preceding hour the price has been as high as 86?, and as low as 86. When it touches 86 again he concludes to buy, guessing that it is likely to rise. Accordingly he purchases 1,000 bushels at that price, advancing ten dollars as a margin. Perhaps the next change is an advance to 86?. He might now sell out without loss, as the ? in his favor amounts to exactly the commission charged by the shop. The next quotation is, say 86, and the following one 85?. If it should continue to fall until 85? is touched, he is said to be “frozen out,” inasmuch as the decline of ? added to the ? brokerage charged by the proprietor, equals the ten dollars which he has advanced. Perhaps he concludes to “re-margin,” in which case he will put up ten dollars more. Possibly the market may now take an upward turn and rise until 86? is again reached. It is now within his power to close the transaction without loss other than that involved in the payment of the commissions. Let us suppose that he does so. It is quite probable that it will now occur to him that the market is likely again to recede, and he accordingly sells 1,000 bushels at 86?, once more advancing ten dollars as a margin. If the price continues to rise until 87 is reached, our venturesome speculator is again frozen out, and is ten dollars lighter in pocket.

The above supposed cases are fair illustrations of the average bucket shop trading. A majority of the patrons of these establishments are “scalpers,” satisfied if they can win five, ten, or twenty dollars, and close observers say that fully seven out of ten guess the market wrong. The shop always makes its regular commission, no matter what may be the result of the transaction. “Puts,” “calls” and “straddles” are also sold at these places, although, of course on a far smaller scale than by members of the regular exchanges.

But bucket shops have other and darker sides. It is by no means uncommon for a manager so to manipulate quotations as to wipe out speculators margins at his own pleasure. Thus, if it is for his interest that a certain stock or commodity should decline, the quotations which he posts upon his blackboard show a fall, without reference to the actual course of the market at the regular exchanges.

Another, and favorite, device of the gentry, by which large sums are often realized, is to “fail.” A considerable amount of money—say $50,000 or $60,000—having been received as margins, and being carried by the house, a plan is formed by which it may be absorbed by the proprietor with but little chance of detection. In order to accomplish this he has resort to the aid of some reputable (?) firm of brokers, who are members in good standing, of some regular exchange. He arranges with them to enter in their books, records of fictitious transactions with him of such a character and to such an amount that he may appear to have lost the money in speculating, for the benefit of his customers, upon ’Change. The obliging firm of brokers receive, for rendering this valuable service, the regular commission of one-eighth of one cent per bushel upon the transactions thus fraudulently entered. It is, in itself, a striking commentary upon the methods and morals of the average commercial exchange of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, that brokers can be found, who, while claiming to be upright, honorable business men, are willing, for so paltry a consideration to outrage integrity, and drag honor in the dust.

Apropos of bucket shops, however, it may be cited as a singular commentary on the sincerity of the instituted condemnation heaped upon them by the Western exchange which resolved to cease its dissemination of “valuable commercial and economic information,” that the same organization has recently adopted a rule reducing the limit of bushels of grain which may be bought and sold upon the floor to one thousand bushels. It would be uncharitable to suppose that the institution in question intended to enter into rivalry with the bucket shops; yet had that been its intention it could scarcely have devised a scheme better calculated to bring about such a result. Men, the scantiness of whose means had forbidden their speculating on the regular exchange, may now gratify their inclinations upon the “floor” with almost the same ease as before the huge blackboard in the bucket shop.

Nor should it be forgotten that there is an aspect in which the great commercial exchanges work more harm to the community at large than do the less reputable concerns which follow at a respectable distance in their wake. A sale or purchase of a large “block” of grain or provisions upon the floor of a regular exchange affects the price of the commodity in every retail market throughout the country, thus working a direct injury to the consumer, who finds himself unable to judge, from one day to another, what will be the cost on the morrow, of the necessaries of life. A transaction involving precisely the same quantity of the same commodity in a bucket shop works no such result. It is the “operators,” whose selfish greed brings about the fluctuations which work such hardships to the poor.

Such is the commercial exchange of to-day, and such the fungus-like excrescenceexcrescence which is its off-shoot. Call these practices which have been here described by what name you will, plain, unvarnished truth stamps them as gambling on a gigantic scale and in one of its deadliest forms. And yet the State holds over them the protecting Ægis of the law, and the community at large gives them the moral support of its approving smile. For the avowed professional gambler there is no place in the political edifice. In the eye of society he is a pariah; in that of the law a culprit; in that of the church a moral leper. Yet the heartless operator who deliberates long and earnestly how he may most speedily and surely accomplish the ruin of the man for whom he professes the sincerest friendship; for the selfish speculator who passes toilsome days and sleepless nights in devising schemes for forcing up the price of the necessaries of life; for the far-seeing scoundrel who concocts a cunningly devised scheme for wrecking a railroad in whose stock, it may be, are invested the funds on which the widow and the orphan depend for subsistence—for these men, society has no condemnation, the law no terrors, and the pulpit no denunciation. They build churches and found colleges; they preside at public gatherings and occupy posts of honor upon public committees. It is a trite aphorism that “nothing succeeds like success,” and no more apt illustration of its truth could be given than the adulation bestowed upon men whose fortunes have been cemented by the groans of the unfortunate, and the tears of the widow. Of a truth it is time that society placed the seal of its disapproval upon gambling openly conducted in marble palaces as emphatically as upon the same vice carried on behind darkened windows and barred doors. In this, as in every other great moral reform, much depends upon the attitude and influence of the clergy, who, as a body, have hitherto kept silent as to the crying evil spread out before them.

The idea of the inception of the exchange was grand in its scope. Such organizations have a lofty mission, and it is within their power to encourage commerce, to promote honesty in trade, and to advance the best interests of the State. When an enlightened public sentiment shall compel the elimination from them of those baleful features which have been here portrayed, when the pure gold of legitimate traffic shall have been separated from the dross of illegitimate speculation, when the revival of a healthful moral tone shall have averted the danger which now menaces us, that through the influence and example of the exchange we shall become a nation of gamblers, then no longer shall phantoms haunt the imagination and fallacies pervert the judgment of men; but there shall rise upon the eye of the world the lineaments of a republic far transcending the loftiest conceptions of Plato; a republic of which poets have dreamed and which prophets have foreshadowed; the flowerage of centuries; the bloom and perfume of a Christian civilization.

An offshoot of the mania for gambling in stocks—yet one which is chargeable rather to the bucket shop than to the regular exchange—is known as the “clock.” Of all the multitudinous devices by which swindlers deceive dupes, this is, perhaps the most inherently and transparently absurd. I have fastened its parentage upon the bucket shop for the reason that it is undoubtedly the offspring of the fertile brain of some proprietor of one of these establishments, where rascals grow rich on the gullibility of fools.

The “clock” is a gambling device which can be likened to nothing so aptly as to a “brace” faro box. Both contain cards; in both these, cards are arranged according to the will of the manipulator; in both, the proprietor, or dealer, or other person operating the implement, can determine with tolerable accuracy, whether it is wisest to permit the victim to win or lose.

Yet there are minor points of difference. In the faro box the cards are drawn out through a slit; in the clock they are exposed to view by pulling a string which allows them to fall at the operator’s will. At faro, ordinary playing cards are used; in the case of the clock the cards employed contain the names of stocks—sometimes actual and sometimes fictitious—together with figures which purport to represent values of the stocks named, but which, as a matter of fact, sustain no more intimate relations to actual market quotations than would a map of China to the topography of the moon. The reader who will peruse the description given below will, if he has already had the patience to familiarize himself with the explanation of frauds at faro, recognize the fairness of the comparison above drawn.

The gambling “clock” consists of two parts: a contrivance in which the cards are kept and from which they are dropped, and a sort of dial in which they are exhibited to the interested gaze of the players. Its mechanism appears to be a triumph of the simplicity of invention. The operator sits either directly in front or at some convenient point where he may see the inscriptions on the cards as they fall. From time to time he pulls a string; the card exposed disappears from sight and is replaced by another.

The method of “speculating” (or, as it might more properly be called, betting) is as follows: The player notes the course of some stock—perhaps one called “Jem Dandy”—observing its “rise” or “fall,” as shown by the figures on the cards, and possibly keeping a record of its ostensible “fluctuations,” very much as a faro player records the issuance of cards from the dealing box. Perhaps one of them concludes that some particular “stock” having fallen, as shown by the cards during three or four consecutive exposures, he imagines that the chances are in favor of the next card of the same stock showing an “advance.” Accordingly, he concludes to back his judgment with his money. He does not bet directly, as a faro gamester, for instance, might place a stack of chips upon a queen. He “purchases” a certain number of “shares” of the “stock” in question, advancing the amount which he is willing to risk as a “margin,” precisely as he would were he buying stocks or grain in a bucket shop. His fate is sealed by the appearance of the next card inscribed with the same suit. If “Jem Dandy,” or whatever other stock he may have bought, “goes up” he wins; if it “falls” he loses.

The reader will have no difficulty in perceiving that, as has been intimated, the pretended “sale” was in reality no sale at all, the entire transaction being a wager, pure and simple, on the turn of a particular card. Nor is it difficult to comprehend that a professional gambler can manipulate pre-arranged cards by pulling a string as easily as by using his thumb and forefinger.

The rooms where the “clock” is used are not infrequently infested by confidence men of a peculiar sort. The verdant visitor who appears to be a “soft mark” is often approached by men who tell him that their “wives” are clairvoyants, or trance mediums, who can predict with infallible accuracy, the order in which these cards will leave the receptacle on the ensuing day. For a small consideration—e. g., five dollars—they will impart to him information through the possession of which he may certainly win hundreds, if not thousands. These persons, however, never explain why they should prefer to sacrifice, for such a paltry sum, the knowledge which would enable themselves to accumulate fortunes with a celerity which would cast completely into the shade the rapid mathematical computations of the “lightning calculator.”

It occasionally happens, however, that the proprietor of one of these “clocks” comes to grief through the wiles of a more adroit scoundrel than himself. Within a comparatively short period a manipulator of a machine of this kind in a great western metropolis found his attention diverted from his “clock,” with its attached string, by the progress of a fight in one corner of his room. There appeared to be no doubt as to the genuineness of the combatants’ hostility, the blows were heavy and blood flowed freely. The available force of the place was called into requisition to separate the combatants and restore order. Peace having once more settled down upon the establishment and the brawlers having been ejected, business was resumed. A quiet-looking gentleman, who had recently entered, became deeply interested in the market for “Jem Dandy;” he bought and sold with apparent recklessness, yet—mirabile dictu—he invariably won. He bet largely and won enormously. In consequence the proprietor concluded to abjure “speculation” for the day. In other words, he posted a placard to the effect that holders of contracts might cash their winnings at once, but that the house proposed to suspend further business until the next morning.

Of course the fight was what gamblers term a “stall,” i. e., a trick by which another gang of sharpers might have an opportunity of resorting to the same tactics employed by professionals who travel about the country “snaking” cards. In other words, and plainer English, the “fight,” however seemingly earnest, was in reality a sham. Five sharpers were confederated in the perpetration of the scheme. Three of them engaged in the scrimmage, one of them took advantage of the melee to “ring in a cold deck,” and the other, handsomely dressed and imperturbable of demeanor, quietly saw his confederates “pound” one another, and then quietly bet upon the descent of the cards from a pre-arranged pack which had been substituted in the receptacle for those placed there by the proprietor’s employes.

I hardly know how I could more fittingly close my exposition of gambling than by a description such as that given above. Nothing could more aptly illustrate the remorseless tactics of the professional scoundrel; nothing could better show the gullibility of the dupe; nothing could better exemplify the hollowness of the adage that there is “honor among thieves.”

O, young men of the only republic which has demonstrated its past vitality by the average virtue of its citizens; O, parents, to whose tender care has been committed a charge which God Himself has denominated a sacred trust; O, law-makers, to whose wisdom is entrusted the framing of statutes for the repression of vice and the propagation and perpetuation of public morals—listen to the voice of a penitent who has sounded the utmost depths of degradation. The enlightenment of the intellect, the awakening of the conscience, the conversion of the will—these are the agencies which Divine Providence may employ to avert from the American people the wrath of Him who has said that the casting of the lot is in the hands of the Lord.

No description of the Chicago Board of Trade would be complete which failed to bring out, in bold relief, the figure of the daring speculator whose mysterious movements have long proved an enigma to his fellow members, the sphinx of the chamber, the “king of the wheat pit,” Mr. Benjamin Peters Hutchinson, better known to his friends and to the country at large as “Old Hutch.” The accompanying cut is a good likeness of this remarkable man. Born in New England, he emigrated to the West while a mere youth, and has “grown up” with Chicago. Endowed by nature with indomitable pluck and marvelous energy, he has carved out his own success. He is beyond question the largest operator on the floor of ’Change in the city of his choice, and his ventures are as bold as they are gigantic. In a business enterprise he fears no foe, as he recognizes no friend, and his tall, spare form looms up as a tower of granite in the midst of the turbulent waves of speculation which surge around him.

CHAPTER III.

NATURE AND EFFECTS OF GAMING.

Gambling holds a high place among the vices of society. It proposes to the young that they secure money without earning it honestly. It thus asks thousands of persons to disregard the noble pursuits and to become gamblers. True manhood is made by the following of an honorable industry. If we contrast Watt, who made the engine, with some gambler, the difference at once appears between the noble callings and the games of chance. The lawyer, the physician, the mechanic, the inventor, the writer can show a reason of existence. With the gambler this is impossible. He has no reason for being in life.

The first evil of gambling is this intellectual loss, incurred by being turned away from all those honorable pursuits which create mental power. Astronomy helped make Newton,Newton, art made Angelo, the law helped make Burke and Webster, traffic made Peabody and Peter Cooper, the press made Greeley and Raymond, but gambling will take the best mind the age can produce and degrade it to the level of the brain of a trickster or a thief. There is nothing in gambling except a kind of sneaking hope of a shameful success. It is a contest in which victory is as shameful as defeat.

The professional gambler does not glory in his calling. He does not call a convention for the purpose of conferring with the scientific men of the age; nor does he demand a corner in the world’s “fairs” that he may exhibit his implements and methods. His occupation asks concealment, and thus makes the features of the face carry at last the strange evidences of the hidden art.

The many fashionable people who play cards for a little money extract from the game a little amusement, but a certain per centum of those who thus begin so modestly move on to a financial and mental ruin. The taste for games of chance grows as days pass, and the one who played a little passes on until he plays much. Soon the heart, mind and face are those of the gambler.

The gambling room is based upon fraud. The philosophy is simply that of craft against innocence. It is a well known fact that a large part of the human race is simple-minded. These can be preyed upon by those who have made craft a study. Many persons are weak and innocent enough to be caught in a trap. The professional gambler belongs to a form of humanity which will spend life in betraying persons younger and less suspicious than itself. A large part of the human race possesses innocence enough to enable them to be betrayed. The gambler thus makes his fortune by wrecking the trust men have in each other. He picks the pockets of the simple of heart.

The game of the professional gambler is not one of chance. They cannot afford to use a fair game of chance, because nature would be against them half the time and loss and gain would be equal. All those games played on the railway and in the “den” are the gambler’s own games. They are doctored so as to fall, like loaded dice, in his favor. For the young man to play with a gambler is to be beaten. Fairness is a virtue for which the gambler has no use. If he loved fairness he would work at some trade or turn farmer. Luck may help a man for a day, but it will go over to the other man to-morrow, for it is no respecter of persons. The only help that will stand by a gambler all the year through is fraud.

It is difficult to measure this vice, but it is so great as to merit from all civilized States immediate destruction. Like the opium habit, it must be checked by law. When the police will not enforce an existing law, they cease to be police, because the word “police” implies the care of a city, the study of its welfare. It is a bad condition of wool-growing when wolves are employed to guard sheep.

David Swing

David Swing

M^cIntyre

CHAPTER IV.

ARRAIGNMENT OF GAMBLING IN ITS MORAL ASPECTS.

“Did you ever see the autograph of the President?” said Warden B., of the I. State Penitentiary. He had been a member of my congregation for years, and at his request I had visited the prison to preach to the convicts. The wagon which brought me from the station carried the mail bag, and, while looking over his letters, he held up a large official envelope with the above question.

“No,” I answered, taking my eyes from the intelligent convict who sat in striped clothing writing at a desk, and whose shaven and shame-flushed face was persistently turned from me. “I would like to see his signature, as my vote helped to put him in the White House.”

“There it is,” said the warden, handing me the document, which I soon discovered to be a pardon for a certain youth, who had served three years of a six years sentence for theft from the Post Office Department.

“Why is this pardon given, warden?” “Well,” said he, “this young man is of good family, and has dependent on him a widowed mother, a wife and child. He became the dupe of gamblers who fleeced him, and then the Devil, I reckon, suggested that he might recoup his loss by stealing from the Government, and in an evil hour he fell, was detected, convicted, and with other United States men sent here. I remember the day he came; how heart-broken he stood in the corridor till the sheriff gave me the papers, unloosed his shackles, and turned the gang over to me. They were coupled in irons on the cars, and John was paired with a hardened felon who had done time before, as had most of the lot. They glanced defiantly around at the officers with a braggart insolence as the iron gates clanged on them, but he paled and trembled, tears silently flowing down his face to the stone floor. I followed to the bath-house, where they are washed, shaved, cropped and dressed in stripes. At the registry, when asked his age, name, etc., with great effort he managed to answer, but when asked his father’s name, a vision of the dead seemed to rise before him. Overwhelmed with shame he tried thrice with choking utterance to tell the name, and then faltered it with such a moan of agony that even the clerk, used to such scenes, felt his hand tremble as he wrote it down. You know our rules require the reading of all letters before they reach the prisoners. The chaplain, at my request, read those sent to him. We found such woe, such evidence of his former honor, such testimony to his previous good character, that friends became interested in him. I helped them, thinking it a case for Executive clemency. The President, who is a merciful man, looked into the case, pondered it a month, and sends this pardon.”

“Now,” I said when the sad story was ended, “warden, I want to ask a favor. Let me present this pardon to him in person. I understand that it makes him free from this hour; I wish to study the human face in the moment when the revelation that he is free dawns on his mind. May I do this?”

“Certainly,” was the answer, and striking a silver bell, a “trusty” appeared. He said, “Tom, bring John R. to my office at once.”

While waiting, I said, “Does he expect a pardon?”

“No,” was the answer, “he knows nothing of the efforts to set him free. It will be a total surprise to him.”

In a few moments the trusty returned with the man he was sent to summon. The jail garb did not wholly hide his handsome form, nor the cropped hair entirely vulgarize the intellectual countenance which fell as he saw strangers looking at him. He seemed to wonder why he was ordered up before the warden; there was shame, sorrow, helplessness in his face as I rose, with the paper in my hand and walked toward him.

“John,” said the warden, “this gentleman has a few words to say to you.”

The convict braced himself for the interview, and I said, “Your name is John R., I believe.” “Yes,” he replied steadily.

“I have here,” I went on, “a paper addressed to you, signed by the President of the United States. It is a pardon. You are a free man, John.”

The look of assumed courage in his eyes changed to one of infinite pathos, then softened piteously as his soul swooned with joy that was almost too much. I saw him sway as if to fall, but caught him, and leaning on my shoulder, he said, “Free! free! O God, is it true? When can I go home?” “This very moment,” said I. He looked wistfully out the great door where the sentry stood, and asked, “Can I go out there now.”

“Yes,” I said, “come, I will go with you,” and arm in arm we walked down the great stone stair, passed the guards into the street and across to a fence beyond. He stopped a pace or two away, looked at the emerald hills, the river flowing by, the children passing, the firmament above, and as the happy tears drenched his face, said: “O, sir, I am the happiest man alive. When does the train start East?” “At three,” I said, “I will see you safely started.”

“Wont my wife and baby Jess be glad to-morrow, and mother, how she will smile; I am eager to be off.” I took him in and soon saw him fitted with the civilian’s clothes and provided with the railway ticket to his destination, and with the $10 the State gives every released convict.convict.

How proudly he walked by my side to the station, and as the bell clanged, he held my hand and said, “You talk to hundreds of young men. SirSir, tell them this, tell it with burning eloquence, tell it with pleading tears, beware of gaming, shun gamblers as lepers. Cards are accursed of God, and pass-ports to perdition. Will you tell them this?” And as the train moved off I said, “I will.”

To this end I write a chapter in this book, that by earnest warning or brotherly appeal, I may help to pluck young men out of the hands of this giant enemy of our race, and perhaps halt some who are already hurrying down this highway to dishonor. Standing here at the very gates of these polluted temples, where many have been cruelly “done to death,” I raise the cry “beware of gaming. It dishonors God, degrades man, wrecks honor, ruins business, destroys homes, breaks wifely hearts, steals babes’ bread, brings mothers sorrowing to the grave, and at last, with reckless bravado, launches the sinful soul into the path of God’s descending wrath, to be overwhelmed forever.”

The only argument offered by gamblers is that their business keeps money in circulation. It does, indeed, transferring it from the pocket of the fool to that of the knave, and thence to the pockets of the harlot or rum-seller, but there is no gain in this transaction. Better the money had remained where it was, or been put to other uses.

Young men will read these words who know not one card from another; who have no personal knowledge of lotteries, raffles, dice or betting. Yours is blissful ignorance, honorable innocence.

How I love the youth who can say, when cards are brought out for play in a private house, “I do not know one card from another. I have no desire to learn their use.” Young heart of oak, give me thy hand. Some will sneer, I charge you to keep your honor bright.

Though people of good character persuade and gloss this evil, stand firm as the hills. Should professing Christians (God pity them) make of the painted paste-boards a social snare, be the company never so charming, the stakes never so trifling, beware. Once you play the first game, you are on the slant; the descent is smooth and swift, and the end is terrible.

You will hear sophistries about the difference between playing and gambling, and the harmlessness of cards and other Devil’s toggery. Playing is the egg out of which the cockatrice is hatched. Handle it not.

Climbing a slippery pass in the Alps, one comes to a narrow icy path with a great rock on the one hand, and a deep gorge on the other. It is called by the guides the “Hell Place,” and you are asked to creep cautiously there, a slip is destruction. The green cloth of the gaming table is the moral hell place to many souls; to this, sorrowing relatives, weeping wives, heart-broken mothers can point and say, “There my boy slipped, there my husband fell, lost property, position, honor, all.” At the foot of this slant is the prisoner’s cell, the maniac’s cage, the suicide’s grave; at the top the smiling decoy, shod with adder skin, or the smooth tongued gamester, waiting to lure men to the fatal hazard.

Some will read these words who are already acquainted with the beginnings of this honeyed vice. They have shuffled the satanic pack, booked the bet, and perhaps pinched themselves in purse to pay the lost wager, or have now in pocket the coins won at gambling. Take these coins out and look at them; they are unclean, polluted.

Once, when the plague ravished an English village, the wretched people resorted to the bank of the stream near by, to get bread left there for them. They tossed the coins for payment into the brook where they were found hours afterwards by those who sold the food. They thought the water had cleansed the pestilent contagion from the coins. Perhaps it had, but no brook, river or sea hath tide medicinal enough to cleanse the curse from money won at gaming. It is cankered. It is blood-stained and tear-rusted. It will curse him that wins and him that loses.

My friend, you are yet only a novice in this black art. Let me, by all rational appeal, abjure you to abstain. It is the father of falsehood, forgery and fraud, and the covetous human heart is the mother of this ill-gotten brood.

Can you specify one instance where the gains of gambling have brought comfort or contentment? What would your father think, your employer say, if they knew that you were a gamester, spending your evenings where these human swine whet their tusks? Who sinks so low in the mire of infamy as the man who is kicked out of business or society with the millstone of gambling hung to his neck? Bitter is the ban and black is the brand put on the wretch whose hardened forehead is set against the hissing of that word “gambler.”

Who are the associates a man finds at races and the card table? Are they not the Pariahs, social lepers whose touch is pollution? Would a man take his sisters or his children among these white-fanged wolves; are they not nameless at the hearth, unknown where high-toned and virtuous people meet? Think of the vile talk, the impure jest, the unclean associations. You cannot stoop to this. What can money buy, though you won every wager, that will repay you for the loss of wifely love, childhood’s trust, the father’s proud faith in his boy.

Consider the malign vicissitudes of this sport, see the ruined, forsaken, nerveless gambler, wrecked and wretched at last; abandoned to the gibes of men, and the anger of God; crawling into a lazaretto to die. Mother, with dimpled hands upheld to you at evening, and fair head pillowed on your bosom, think not, “My bonnie boy is safe.” This fiend spares none. He will seek this braw lad to destroy him. With devilish cunning he will even persuade you to aid in your son’s downfall; to teach him in the social game, to use the leprous papers of the pit, on which is inscribed the voiceless litany of woe.

Hell’s utmost anguish surely has no deeper depth than that of the mother who sees her son a degraded, sodden gamester, and remembers that she taught him to handle the implements of his ruin. If a mother can front the judgment and say, “I never countenancedcountenanced the evil, I bitterly opposed it always, to the utmost of my power,” she may feel when her dear son is lost, the most unspeakable regret, but she escapes the remorse which eats the heart of her who unwittingly fostered the serpent which compassed her child’s destruction. Let us ring our children round with circles of flame across which none of these man hawks can come. Let us make home the happiest place on earth. With mirth, laughter, music, books, friends; a safe refuge, a snug harbor, a shadow of a great rock, and a citadel for defence of our dear ones from this pitiless foe.

Let me sketch the career of an upright, kindly village youth who longs for a wider field of action. He has mastered the elements of business as practiced in the rural community; he desires to try his talents in the busy world, and chooses a mighty city as the field of his endeavor. A roaring center of commercial activity; its streets a throbbing ganglion of business nerves; its mart the engorged plexus of traffic, where the best and the worst have habitation.

As I see this young fellow, with face like an open book, standing for the first time in the city’s streets, I am reminded of a scene I once witnessed in the country. I stood on the edge of a wood looking across a beautiful meadow. It was a perfect day in June, and all the world seemed at peace. Crickets were chirping in the grass, the yellow-hammer was tapping on a tree above, the cattle were grazing brisket-deep in the lush grass, the birds were singing as if to breathe were music. All nature looked lovely. Far away across the brook, on a dead tree, I noticed a number of buzzards, waiting for the sight of something on which they might gorge their unclean appetites.

I think of this as I watch him alone on the city’s street at evening, gazing into a window where the light falls on diamonds, opals, rubies; amid the din of the city, near the theaters and saloons, where music throbs, lamps flare, cabs rattle, and through these noises comes a voice in modulated semi-tones from one standing at his side, who asks: “Did you hear of the big winning last night.”night.” “No, sir, where was it?” “Up the street, at old Brad’s place, No. 197. A fellow won $6,000 in two hours. I am going up to try my luck. Come along, just for the fun of the thing.” He goes. The front of the house is dark; a red light burns over the stairway door—danger signal over a bottomless abyss. He is void of understanding; a private key, pass word, or patron of the game is needed to secure entrance. The panel of the door slips aside, a whisper, then a reply. The door opens, upstairs they go. Men seated and standing scarcely look up—wheels click—dice rattle—cards shuffle—glasses clink—sooty servants glide with trays, and bottles—cheap stucco statuary appear through the smoke—muttered curses tell of losses. He is led to the faro table, where a mastiff-faced man deals cards, and after he has sipped a little liquor, which is freely offered, he tells his guide that he has never played. He is informed that a man always wins his first bet—fortune favors first play. Men put chips in his hands, saying, “Play this bet for me.” “But I don’t know the cards,” he replies. “Put the bet down on any card, it will surely win.” Down it goes—it wins—and as they rake in the gains, he thinks, “I might have won a month’s salary in a moment.” Lightly as snowflakes fall the cards; deft the touch; swift the shuffle. It seems so simple. He carries money saved from a father’s toil, a sister’s earnings offered to help him secure his stock of goods to start business. Mother has helped him, saying, “David will help me when I need his help. I will have a strong son to lean on when my old feet dip down falteringly to the cold river of death.”

As he hesitates there on the porch of Perdition, he is about to bid farewell to peace, farewell to prospects of success, farewell to the promise of his young manhood, farewell to the prayers of his parents. Pray, mother! with clasped hands kneeling at this very hour under the pictures in your boy’s room. Pray, “God be gracious to my boy. Gird him round with mercy.” Sing, sister, sing! Sitting alone where the moon-light falls on thy fingers as they wander over the keys, sing soft and low the very hymn you sang at parting, “God be with you till we meet again.” Sing! maiden, till the tears falling fast tell the fears uprising in thy heart.

Look, old father, down the road where the peaceful world lies transfigured in the mellow beams of the moon; down the road where he went away so cheery, brave, tender, looking backwards from the coach with many a wave of the hand and fond goodbye. Listen, father to the whip-poor-will in the copse answering the katydid in the hedge, frogs shrilling from the swamp, an owl hooting from the woods; the air grows cold, a chilling sense of discomfort shakes thy frame.

Ah, if thou couldst see thy son now, thy hope, thy pride—among knaves. He stakes his means—he wins—he has doubled his fund. Good, good—his face glows, his pulses are rhythmic to the music of success. Excited, confident, reckless, he loses—doubles his loss—forgets all prudence, unrolls the savings of years on the little farm—mother’s needle, father’s plow, sister’s music lessons, earned that hoard. He piles it on the board with burning eyes set on the cards, watches them coming one by one. Oh, unpicturable horror! Money, honor, parental hopes—all earthly and eternal weal staked on that hazard. The Sphinx-faced scoundrel slips the card—the young man hears the word “Lost!”—sees the sharpers laugh as the dealer draws in his all. The room swims before his sight; madness seizes him as the sneering taunt, “Another sucker done up,” smites him like a lash across the face.

Frenzied, he clears the table at a bound, his brown fingers close around the white throat of the lean-faced hellion who has robbed him. Like a tiger uncaged he hurls him to the floor, and fronts the crowd of desperadoes with blazing face. In vain are all his struggles; many leap on him, he is beaten, kicked, hustled down stairs, where, hatless and bruised, he madly pounds the heavy door till his hand is a mass of bleeding pain. All in vain. He turns helplessly at last to the street, and through the gray light of dawn finds his room. For hours he hangs on misery’s brink; haggard remorse sits opposite and suggests suicide. Swift as a homing dove his thoughts fly to the farm.

He sees his father in the furrow, his mother in the doorway, her face as radiant as the morning. She gathers a few honeysuckles for his empty room, to her it is a sanctuary now, and he liked them so, and ’twill seem as though he was coming home soon.

An organ beneath his room strikes up an air heavy with old memories; the tune of “The Old Folks at Home,” quavers through his window. With a shuddering cry—“A gambler! a gambler! Oh, God, be merciful; let me die,” he falls by the bedside and burning tears are vain to staunch the hurt in his heart.

He is now in a whirlpool; return seems impossible. You have seen an apple tree in May, rosy in pink and white blossoms, murmurous with bees, glad with birds and glorious with sunshine. In one night the frost kills the bloom; next day the tree hangs with damp, blighted blossoms and blackened buds, an unlovely spectacle.

Few escape the bitter end who begin a gamester’s career.

Next we find him in snuggeries, curtained from basement bar-rooms, studying the cards at midnight, robbing unwary verdants. Conscience is seared as with a hot iron. His heart is flint. He strives with drink to banish thoughts of home, heaven and God; grows morose, cunning, merciless; works a little, hurries again to the feverish excitement of the game, herds with greasy disreputables in foul dens, amid the reek of pipes and hideous blasphemy. Soiled, ill-kempt, rag-clad, he nears the bottom of the slant. One night, crazed with vile rum, he mingles in a fight with fellow outcasts; blood is shed; the alarm brings the clattering patrol wagon, and through the red of early dawn he rides to a cell in murderer’s row. Convicted, condemned, he goes to prison for life—years pass—his sorrowing parents think him dead. He is dead. He died that night when he climbed the stairs to “Old Brad’s den.”

His post is to open and close a gate in the prison yard. Seven years in stripes, taciturn, sullen, he stands there. His soul starves, his heart stagnates, his face becomes stupidly half-human, despair feeds on his mind.

One day two visiting gentlemen see him, they recognize him and speak, holding out a hand which he will not take, trying to stir hope within him. They talk to him of freedom and home. He makes no sign of pleasure; hopeless vacuity rests on his imbruted face. He stares at his gate, shuts it, and says, “Seven years dead, seven years dead.” There he stands, and will stand, till carried to the little graveyard of the prison, touching at last the lowest level of the slant on which the gambler stands.

I charge you with a jealous affection, born of an unfeigned brotherhood, and based on many years study of the effects of this vice. Beware of the beginning of gambling. Have no commerce with the monster iniquity.

First of all, because it dethrones God. Seek its victims in the ranks of bankrupt merchants, in the cells of criminals, in the cellars of shame, or garrets of poverty; talk with them, or with those who have suffered through them, and you will find that the sad sequence of misery began with this heinous affront to God, viz: a practical denial of His very existence and a setting up in His place a blind deity called Chance, before whom they bowed, and on whose favor they risked their all. Even if in their darkened minds the votaries of gaming allow God to exist, they deny His government of the affairs of men. They flee away from all works that can win the help of Jehovah, and ask only the help of fortune. This is heathenry of the worst sort. The farmer plows, plants, cultivates, and hopes that the God of nature will help him by sending sun, rain and dew, that together they may produce the harvest. The sailor, by the march of the constellations and the veracity of the magnetic needle which God offers for his guidance, comes at last to port. The mason builds his wall by the laws of God, and his plumb line and level bear eloquent witness that he wishes to base his work on the certain laws which steadfastly bind the worlds together. These men, however much they ignore God in their speech, keep faith with Him in their work, knowing full well that they can only succeed in any task by keeping in line with His laws. Thus they have yoked the elements to the car of progress. The gambler, however, mocks at God’s laws and insolently banishes Him. He asks no help from fixed laws ordained by the Father to bless his children; he scorns the co-operation of Nature, sets up a fetish called Fortune, and grovelling, courts its smiles. I know of no form of paganism more base than this, and it is not surprising that in the worship of this block-eyed god, the most obscene rites and debasing superstitions are practiced. Dreams, charms, spells, incantations, black art, even the help of the powers of darkness have been used in wooing his favor. The most frightful depths of moral and mental depravity are touched in this shameful business. The negro who sells stolen articles to buy lottery tickets has some gruesome cabalistic secret which he fondly hopes will bring the favor of fortune; the lady who cons the dream-book in her room to learn which number to buy, and fancies her night vision of a gallows tree or a burning Bible will bring propitious fate, are alike far from reason and from God.

Frogs, spiders, beetles, graveyard grass, rabbits killed in burial places, pieces cut from a shroud or slivers from a coffin will insure winnings. Some put the ticket in the cold hand of a corpse, and the lowest level of blasphemous sacrilege is touched when the bread of the sacrament is carried secretly home to be used as a sort of magic aid to conjure the desired gain. Can anything more awful be conceived by the human mind—nay, could the most malignant devil desire a more direct insult to God than this? First the Creator is asked to abdicate His throne to this monstrous usurper, then the sacred symbols of His Son’s sacrificial death are offered to propitiate the unclean and unholy thing set up in His place. This is the iniquity of Balshazar’s feast repeated in our time. The sacred vessels of His holy worship are employed in the service of sensual lust or abandoned carnality. What shall be the outcome of all this depravity? If these souls seeking the brief success of the gamester deliberately turn away from God and practice harlotry with the princes of hell, wantoning with the powers of the pit in unblushing shame, who will paint their last estate when his vengeance finds them out?

The traveller in Egypt who explores with Arab guides the dismal mummy pits by the Nile finds some startling experiences in these caverns of the dead. More fearsome than the dark labyrinths where the bodies lie wrapped in linen and smeared with ghastly hideousness, more terrible than the gloomy grottos where cadavorous mortality swathed in silence waits the resurrection trump, is that grisly cave where the bats, the unclean birds, make their home. Into this the hardiest guides dare not go. The uncanny creatures invade it in myriads, and with their fluttering, furry vans, would quench the light and drive out the bravest intruder. If one desires a sight of these birds, he stands in the sunlight at noon close to the rocky ledge which walls the gardens of the Pharoahs. A shiek, musket in hand, steps a few paces into the vault. His gun is fired directly into the Plutonian chamber with a roar as if an earthquake was shaking the knees of the eternal hills. Then a dark torrent of winged things, with a sound as of a mighty wind, sweeps out into the light, fluttering the sweet air into horror with leathern wings. They fly about in circles and dart back, pained and dazzled by the light, into their obscene home. Some in blindness, eager to escape the sun, dash themselves against the rocky lintel and posts of the entrance, and fall broken and mangled at your feet, as tremblingly you shrink from the bruised clots fluttering in dying spasms about you.

Such shall be the condition of these poor blinded souls who choose darkness rather than day, leaving the light of the smile of heaven to dwell in the gloomy precincts where the gamester’s deity sits in grim mockery and receives the worship of his clans. Suddenly, with a mighty shout, shall their leaden souls be wakened to their shame. The shining Angel, with one sandal on the heaving earth, and the other in the swelling sea, shall cry in trumpet tones that split the silence of earthly crypts and sea deep caves, “Awake, ye dead, and come to judgment!” Then, impelled by a resistless force, shall all souls sweep into the bright light of the great white throne.

Some who have looked at the cross on that lone Syrian hill, shall see one beloved seated thereon, and shall sing for very joy as they press nearer for his greeting. Others who come from the confines of Godless unbelief will be dazzled into blindness by the glory of his presence.

Then shall they call upon the rocks to fall upon them, and say to the hills, “Hide us from the face of the Lamb.” Frenzied, they will essay to flee back into their former holes, dashing their souls, bruised and ruined, against the adamantine front of God’s eternal laws, and drop shrieking into Perdition, where the Prince of gamesters, catching them to himself, will say, “Souls are stakes. The game is done. All these I have won.”

Not only does gambling dethrone God, but it degrades man. In this evil work it is the most certain and effectual of all vices. It commonly works in iniquitous league with other sins, but alone it eats out honesty, affection and virtue from the heart, and leaves it as empty as a dead man’s hand.

When this vice has had free course through the moral nature for a few years, the man is a mere shell, a human husk, within all is punk and hollowness.hollowness.

The law by which the force of gravitation acts is not more resistless or irrevocable than this law of gaming. Other vices give their devotees intervals of rest, intermissions growing briefer until the last stages bring woe upon the heels of woe to drive the victim to his doom. The gambling demon, once admitted to the mind, never leaves. He haunts his slaves every waking hour, and flits on filthy wings athwart his dreams, spectre-like he walks at his side, keeping pace for pace with his prey. The swift result of his influence is complete moral atrophy.

Ask yourself this question: Where is the dearest spot to man in all the wide creation’s bound? Search all the stars that God has spilled like jewels through the blue abyss. Roam from bloom to bloom of that tree once enrapt in primeval night, which, at his word, burst into blossoms of worlds like this. Yea, visit heaven itself, explore the city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God; the city of the jewelled walls and gates of pearl. Stand where the healing trees trail their branches in the crystal river of life; or walk amidst the asphodel and amaranth that deck the fadeless green of the Paradise of the Saints, and you will not find one spot so dear, so precious to our race, as that Judean hill whereon hangs one whose holy hands were nailed for our salvation on the cross. There, where wondering heaven bends to look pityingly on the exalted one, where dumb nature strives with darkened skies to hide the shame, where man, mad with rage, curses the Christ, and woman, bowed with sorrow, bewails her lord. There, on that most sacred spot in all the universe, in the holiest hour ever marked on the dial of time, when heaven, earth and hell are quick with interest, who is it sits unmoved, unobservant, unstirred, concerned only with the game? Ruthless gamblers sit beneath the lowering skies, and on the palsied earth they shake the dice to win the garments of the man of sorrows.

This infamy was needed to make Christ’s death as ignominious as a demon could desire. Only Apollyon could suggest the shameful scene on which the dying eyes of the Son of man rested, as the crowning demonism of it all. A group of gamblers bending over the few robes which were all his possessions. O, Satan, that was a monster stroke to embitter his last hour! No other being but a gambler could have put a fit climax to that day’s iniquity.

As I think on the merciless nature of the abandoned gamester, I am reminded of the story told of a petrified forest in Idaho. “Yes,” said the yarn spinner, “you can see trees standing there petrified, bushes and vines, leaves and buds and all, petrified, and there stands a hunter with his gun up. He has just shot a hawk in the air, and the hawk hangs dead in the air, petrified.” “O, that’s too much,” remarked a bystander, “the law of gravitation would bring the hawk down.” “Not at all,” said the other, “the law of gravitation is petrified too.”

In the gambler’s nature all natural feelings seem petrified. He never relents or pities. His drink is fen-water, his meat is adder’s flesh. Innocent men are the victims of his callous covetousness. Women and children are deprived of the money needed for the comforts and even the necessities of life. Trust funds and moneys belonging to others swell his ill-gotten gains, and as revealed in the pathetic history of the author of this volume, he is such a thrall to sin that a father’s pleading, a mother’s prayers, even that best blessing which God can give a man, a true, chaste woman’s wifely love, are forgotten to follow this evil passion that rages like a fire in his bosom. He is like a strong swimmer enmeshed in treacherous seaweeds which seem so easily broken, but cling to hands and feet more strongly than chains, and at last wrap him in death as he goes with a despairing cry down to lie in the ooze at the bottom.

If all who have been ruined in temporal and eternal things by it could rise and walk in sad procession through the land, the spectacle would appal the stoutest heart. If all the names of the men undone by this art could be written on the cards used to-day in gaming, every one would be signed across with the blood-red autograph of a doomed soul.

The fountains of Monaco seem to drip tears, and in the odorous shrubbery the wind sighs like the echo of the last cry of the bond slave led captive from its sinks of sin. Were it not for the stupifying spell gambling throws on all its thralls, the licentious associations and scrofulous surroundings of the play might stir the soul to escape from its condemnation. Fathers have wept over lost sons; tender children over disgraced fathers, downcast sisters have beseechingly invoked vengeance on a brother’s destroyers, and wives with little ones clinging to their skirts have implored with tearful eloquence the gamester to break the bonds that held him. All in vain. He mingles with the moral refuse of the land, plunges deeper in degradation, becomes an inmate in these habitations of cruelty, and with all the pith and marrow of mankind sucked out, with blood poisoned and bone rotted, he consorts with drunken sailors, filthy women and skulking vagrants, playing with unsteady hand for the few coins he can gather, till death with the besom of a nameless disease sweeps his foul carcass into the pauper’s grave.

Of all men, he seems to me the most spectral and bloodless, the most effectually blighted and paralyzed. How the virtuous person shrinks from one who is pointed out as a gambler. If you wish to see what nature thinks of this vice, look into his face. Women of fair fame shun him. Children avoid him on the street, and men pass him with averted faces. Burns, in his strange poem of “Tam O’Shanter,” tells how the tipsy hero peers into “Alloways auld haunted kirk,” and watches the witches’ unearthly dance, taking note of what lay upon the holy table. Surely ’tis a chilling catalogue as he writes it:

“A murderer’s bones in gibbet irons,

Two span-long wee unchristened bairns

A garter which a babe had strangled,

A knife a father’s throat had mangled

Whose own son had him of life bereft,

The gray hair yet stuck to the heft.”

Now fancy another son of this murdered father using this bloody knife as a plaything. Such the cards used in gaming seem to me—hideously stained with the blood of loved ones, and I would as soon think of rattling the handles of my baby’s coffin for music, as shuffling the cards for pleasure. I can appreciate the feeling of that man who was one of a shipload of passengers wrecked on the Atlantic coast some five years ago. In the bitter freezing night they clung to the rigging, and when about to let go and die, one put his hand in his pocket and took out the cards they had been playing with and tossed them into the angry sea, saying, “Boys, I don’t want to go into the presence of God with a deck of cards in my pocket.” More than one “happy couple” have I married only to see the wife deserted that the husband might throw their all into the whirlpool of chance. More than one little home have I seen engulfed in this maelstrom. Many a servant cheats his master, many an employe robs his employer; many a wife abstracts part of her husband’s earnings, thus breeding domestic strife, to cast it all into the coffers of the lottery or the policy shop.

I personally know a man once bright, respected and promising, who takes some of the money his wife earns teaching music, to play faro. Not long ago a man supposed to have a competence died. His heirs found his estate had been squandered, nothing was left save several hundred lottery tickets, which told the story of his folly and his children’s beggary.

What merchant wants a gambler for a clerk? What boss wants a gambler for a workman? What foreman wants a gambler for an apprentice? What family wants a gambler for a doctor? What firm wants a gambler for a salesman? What railway wants a gambler for a conductor? What boy would wish to learn so disgraceful a trade? At the time that I was apprenticed to the bricklaying trade, I knew a lad who began to herd with gamesters. He learned that trade, I learned mine. He earned money; so did I. I was proud of mine, and now I hold up my hands and say, “If my voice should fail, I have an honest trade in my fingers by which I can win my bread.”bread.”

I take my little ones in this very city to the walls where I worked. I show them the courses of brick their father laid, and proudly tell the story of my toil. Can this other man do likewise? Can he hold up his hands before men and say, “I have an honest trade in my fingers”? Can he take his children and show them his work, and tell them with glad face the story of his apprenticeship? No, no; his face crimsons when his trade is mentioned, and though he spent more years at it than I did at mine, he is ashamed of his work to-day.

Young men, learn an honest trade which tends toward manliness. Be content with simple life and frugal means until you can rise honorably to luxuries. Acquire no money by sinful methods. Do not begin gaming as a relaxation, for it will soon become a business. Avoid pool-rooms, race-courses, faro banks, cockfights, policy shops, lotteries, raffles, betting of every form. All such things are perilous. Where one grows rich, one hundred grow poor, and the one who wins is poorest of all. No man is as pitiably poor as the man who has money won by gambling. This form of evil doing will tempt you everywhere, on rail train and steamboat, in hotels, clubs and barber shops; in the loft of the barn, or the carpeted parlor. On the race-track and fair grounds, week days and Sundays, day and night, winter and summer, at home or abroad, in public and private, it will meet you. The suave snob, the seedy scoundrel, will inveigle you, try to win your confidence, borrow or lend, lead or drive; coax or threaten, sometimes with words smooth as butter, then with words that smite like hail. Stand fast, my son. “When sinners entice thee, consent thou not.” Money unearned is blessingless. God’s law is this: If man gets anything from nature he must give labor. If he gets anything from his neighbor he must give a fair equivalent. Only money gotten in this way can bring a blessing.

What does the gambler give his victim in return for his money? Nothing. One of these gold pieces would make the weary wife smile, but the impassive harpy with the cold face and the fire of Gehenna in his heart cuts and deals, shuffles and sorts, then takes all, giving no return but a sneer.

If you think to beat him at his own game, you will know your folly when over your head the waves of misery have met. His motto is: “There is a fool born every minute.” His place is called a “Hell,” and the name fits it like a kid glove. His victim is called a “lamb,” he is led to be fleeced, and driven forth to shiver. The thorough-bred gambler suckled snow for mother’s milk, and all the blood in his frozen heart could be carried in a bottomless cup. There is consolation for other woes, but for losses in gambling there is none. No man will pity you. None will sympathize with you, the very best you can hope for is that they will not laugh as they pass you by.

Do you say that you must have excitement, something to break the dull monotony of existence? Well, if you wish to break the monotony of food, you need not take arsenic, nor break the monotony of drink by prussic acid. Guard yourself just here; the love of excitement ruins thousands. The jaded mind needs a fillip. One tries the play; the death scene in the fourth act excites him. Another tries rum or brandy, another the impure novel; another opium or morphine; another travels to far lands; another lechery; another gambling, and the last is the worst of all. There are wholesome excitements which never enslave and have no bad reaction; which develop, broaden and brace the whole being, but keep clear of gamblers, they are a pack of scullions, experts at thievery, masterhands at cheating. Gyved diabolists who would rape your soul of all that makes life blessed.

I stood in this city beside the coffin of a lovely babe; sweeter child the sunshine never kissed. The mother sat dissolved in tears, with a bright boy holding to her gown. Women tried to comfort her; then I tried. I spoke of the little spirit safe in the arms of Jesus, but lifting her streaming eyes, she said sadly, “It is not the baby’s death, sir, I can endure that. I would not have her back in this cold world. It is my husband’s absence. Oh, that he did not come at this hour to help me.” I questioned the neighbors in the room, and they said, “Her husband is a gambler, does not come home for weeks. She sent him word of the child’s death, but he came not.” Standing there by that lily bud broken from the stem, I thought, “How can a man be so heartless as to stain the forehead of his child with such a wrong”wrong” Heartless? A gambler carries a cinder where the heart should be.

A wife, almost demented with grief, about to be cast out of her house for unpaid rent, went to the mousing scamps who had filched her husband’s money for years, and in broken accents asked for help. With ribaldry, the underlings scoffed her out of their room, while the metallicmetallic faced dealer sat with the veto of silence on his mouth, till she staggered to the street mad, and is to-day a maniac.

An old father receives a letter telling of his son’s downfall, and his aged form falls prone upon the floor of the village post office where he reads the letter. When gentle hands restored him to consciousnessconsciousness he opened his eyes, and when they said, “We thought you were dead.” “Would God I had died,” he replied. “Life is naught to me now.” For years afterward that old man, with mind dethroned, went about the village, writing in the snow or the sand, on the walls and fences, the name of his lost son.

I would like to open the seven vials of the wrath of the Most High and spill them on this nefarious industry. Every day the press tells of some official, treasurer, agent or partner who has fallen or fled, a ruined man, and uncounted thousands suffer their shame unknown.

It is on record that one lottery drawing in London was followed by the suicide of fifty persons who held blank tickets. What rapacious miscreants they must be who ply this trade of spoilation.

As I study the character of this obdurate and unprincipled human wolf, I see only one trait that is worthy of praise; the zeal and strategy displayed in his gross rascality.

As I contrast this with the apathy of many of the virtuous men who seek to lead the people in ways of rectitude, I recall the reply of the Scottish fisherman to the listless angler who caught nothing, while the old hand was steadily filling the creel. “What is the difference, Sandy?” asked the dawdler, “between your fishing and mine?” “Dinna ye ken the difference, mon? You are fishin’ for fun and I’m fishin’ for fish.” Would that we who work in the laudable employment of saving and reforming men, were as busy and as full of resources as these reprehensible foes of society!

Perhaps the young man who reads these words will ask, “How can I keep my mind from defilement and escape the lure of these soul destroyers?” There is only one sure way, and then there is one not so sure. By the simple moral integrity of your soul and a happy bias of natural temperament you may stand firm amid all temptations and come through unscathed. Some have been able to come forth conquerors with these weapons, but many have failed.

The better way, the surer way, is to make a friend and associate early in life of Him who is mighty to save; to cling close to Him with tremorless trust, and take from Him such blameless pleasures as shall make this and all other vicious indulgences seem mean. Remember the mythical story of the sirens who decoyed men to death. When the wise Ulysses had to sail hard by the enchanted isle, he bound the sailors fast to the mast with knotted ropes, and when the ravishing strains of their music floated over the waves they could only tug at their cords, they could not go to their death. The sweet singer Orpheus had to steer his boat over the same dangerous course, but he tied no man. He left them bodily free to leap into the sea and swim to their destruction, but he bound their souls with chords of such heavenly harmonies struck from his lute, that they sailed heedless under the lee of the fateful island, steeped in such ecstacy of melody that they heard not one note of the siren’s song.

It is well to bind the passions and lusts with strong vows and good resolutions. It is best of all to have the soul bound by the heaven-born spell which fills the whole being with delight. This bliss ineffable makes earthly and carnal joys seem contemptible, and drowns every evil desire in the great cry from the heart’s depths:

“Nearer, my God, to Thee,

Nearer to Thee.”

The third count in this black indictment is that gaming not only dethrones God and degrades man, but destroys the most blessed of all human institutions, the home.

Gamblers flock together as naturally as lean-necked vultures; they hunt in packs like coyotes, and intermingle like a knot of clammy vipers that crawl in the dank gloom of a sunless canyon. They have no share in the sweet sanctities of the fireside, and desire vehemently to be elsewhere. Even when the gamester sits at his own table, or embraces his own children, his heart is in another place. Physical contact is not intimacy. He may kiss the wife of his bosom and be as far from her as the east is from the west. Judas kissed Christ, yet at that moment one was in heaven and the other in hell. He hurries away to boon companions, and to the familiar scenes his soul covets. In vain the little ones beseech him to abide at home, in vain the wife entreats him to continue at work, in vain the mother asks the comfort of his presence, the help of his strong arm. He hopes to make a great winning some day, to buy a fine house for his family, then to make amends, turn over a new leaf, and soberly take up the duties of manhood. Some lucky hazard, some windfall, wager or lot will lift him to the level of his dreams. Meanwhile he sinks deeper, debauches himself more and more, till home becomes a hateful place; he deserts his family, or in self-defense is forbidden to cross the sill of the house he has desecrated.

I have gone on missions of comfort to the homes of the drunkard, the bankrupt, the convict, the dying, but never have I seen on woman’s face such unutterable grief and pitiable misery as in the home of the gambler. A cyclone cannot level, nor a fire consume a home so surely as gambling. The infatuated bondman to this vice will let the fire go out on the hearth where his helpless brood crouches in the cold. He will let them ask mother in the lampless twilight with tear-stained faces, why papa does not come. How can the wife tell the weans, what delays his steps?

Was ever woman’s love insulted as he insults it? If some pure passion for art or high scientific research detained him, she would smile, and explain it to the little ones. If profound books or merciful work of benevolence kept him late; if some grave problem of social welfare held him from her arms for awhile, she could bide the time, but the indignity put on her is this, that a loving, virtuous wife with all womanly charms and gentle ministries, waits unheeded while he consorts with disreputable dicers, and the clinging kisses of sweet-lipped babes are forgotten that he may enjoy the company of a lot of heartless card mongers hanging on the frayed edges of society.

When a man will toss away the priceless jewel of wifely love to clutch a bubble like this, turn from a warm, throbbing, palpitant, gentle help-meet to herd with jackals, he puts a shameful affront on her, one that he will have to answer for at the bar of God.

The deluded man is chasing a phantom and hoping to find a happiness that ever eludes him. He could find happiness at home in domestic helpfulness and fatherly endearments. He is like the Scandinavian lover who coveted a kiss from his sweetheart, and said, “I wish I could, some day, find the lost whistle of the Fairy Queen. She has promised to grant one wish to the man who finds it.” “Well,” said the maiden, “if you did find it, what would your wish be?” “It would be this,” said the timid youth, “that I might have one kiss from your red lips.”

“Then the maiden laughed out in her innocent glee,

What a fool of yourself, with that whistle you’d make,

For only consider how silly ’twould be

To sit there and whistle for what you might take.”

The autobiography of the author of this book shows plainly that he had true happiness within his reach. He had wealth, talents, friends, good personal presence, and best of all, a beautiful and gracious wife who truly loved him. Here are all the elements of happiness, yet he went longing for something else, blind to the joys he might have had.

If I should ever write a book on “How to be miserable,” (though married) I would put down as the first condition, let the husband take to gambling. It will assuredly overturn the home, and without a home, man can have but little bliss in this world.

On the terraced lawn of one of the great English schools there are these Latin words, cut in the turf, visible from afar, “Dulce Domum”—“Sweet Home.” There they tell this sad story: A cruel head master, who had in those days almost unlimited power, kept a bright boy, a widow’s only son, at the school during the long summer vacation as punishment for some shortcoming. The lad saw all the others go away to their homes, saw the gates fastened, and he was forced to remain with his keepers. He knew his mother waited his coming; he asked the master with tears, the other boys all joining in the petition, that he might go home. “No, no,” was the stern reply, “you must remain.” No one was permitted to visit from the outside during vacation, and all the weary weeks the lad walked alone on the lawn or wept beneath the trees. His feet wore in the grass the rude outlines of the words “Sweet Home” as he paced in sorrow all the summer days. When school opened, the boy was dying of a broken heart, the mother was allowed to enter, she saw but the pale wreck of her noble son, sinking into death. He knew her not, but as she bent above his white face, she heard the words “Sweet Home, Sweet Home.” He was going home indeed, and no heartless master could hinder him now.

When all was over, the boys marched with spades to the lawn and cut the letters he had traced with his feet, and they abide there to this day, eloquently telling of the love the human heart has for home. This refuge and strong tower, gaming would utterly destroy.

Beginning with the specious plea of amusement, the player soon finds the game grows tasteless as an egg without salt unless there is a stake—at first a small stake, a few dimes or a dollar. Then comes the race track, the raffle, the lottery. Life’s duties seem dull, hilarious comradeship cheers him on, the perverted mind loathes clean food.

Sunday is the chosen day for this transgression. If the man works at all he slights his job, longs for a rainy day or break-down in the machinery to let him off; quarrels with his overseer, hastens to the card table to sit till late at night; looks on the foxiest tricksters around him with deference, thinks it a fine thing to be called a “sport,” smells of tobacco and brandy, is put by society in moral quarantine, barred out of desirable and helpful company, grows more reckless and with all his honor raveled to dirty shreds, becomes a hanger on, a roper, steerer, or double-faced decoy to lure others to the sacrifice.

These are the usual gradations. Now, he is an Ishmael, with only two motives of action, hatred of society, and fierce lust for gain. These burn in his breast till the suicide’s draught, or the crack of some outraged victim’s pistol puts an end to the man who could date his downfall to the day he took up cards for amusement.

He who might have been the head of a happy household goes down to death, his highest hopes being that he may be permitted to creep back

“To the vile dust from which he sprung,

Unwept, unhonored and unsung.”

His brother gamesters buy a wreath of flowers for his cheap coffin, and the blossoms wither as the baleful breath of these men falls on them when they file by for a farewell look. Poor lilies, you are out of place. A bunch of nightshade twisted with thorns were fitter for that casket. The preacher tries hard to say something consolatory, gives it up and dismisses the group, his soul sick within him as he thinks on the outcast’s doom and the fate of his fellows, already hurrying away to their den for another game. Such is the end of a sinful life wasted in gambling and associate vices.

What has become of the woman he married? He took her from a loving home, out of the shelter of a mother’s love. Well do we remember the night of the wedding feast. There are weddings as sad as funerals. This was one. We saw the traces of dissipation on him then. We, who were older and wiser, trembled for her. She was so young, so beauteous, so full of love’s content. They stood there radiant beneath the bridal arch, while a sister’s fingers woke from the piano the wedding march. The eager witnesses looked on, the elders moist eyed and prayerful, the younger folks with quickened pulses studied her face. Nothing of fear was there; only affection, truth and purity. Solemnly the responses were given—just a tremor in her low-spoken but firm “I will.” Then the wedding circlet on her finger gleamed, the binding words, “Till death do us part.” The burst of gratulation, hands outheld, kisses, laughter, smiles and tears, some quiet talk, friendly admonition, and “good night.”

Away to the great city, where he is tempted in the store, tempted on the street, tempted in the park, tempted on every hand. Now, he is away all night. She with her child, suffers on in silence; only her babe and her God see her nightly tears. Poverty’s bread is bitter, and love spurned makes the heart bleed. From cosy home to narrow flat, from flat to noisome tenement, from tenement to damp cellar, driven, forsaken at last, two rooms over an alley stable her only shelter. See her come home from her fruitless endeavor to find him in his haunts, chilled, weak, fainting, she comes to the stable door. With a burst of anguish beyond control she lifts her babe, lays the child in an empty manger, falls upon the straw kneeling and with lifted hands, her wan face white as a winter moon, implores her God to help her utter need. “Come to me, Lord,” she cries, “I am desolate, forsaken, ready to perish: only a stable for a dwelling, Lord. Only a manger wherein to lay my babe. Thou, O Christ, knowest my distress. Thy mother in a stable clasped thee, and Thou, like my helpless little one, wert laid here. Let me reach Thee, let my failing hands find Thy garment’s hem. Thou art good, O God, good beyond all telling. Have I not suffered? See how weak, helpless, deserted I am! Help me, I cry!”

To this, and far worse than this, come those whom this fell plague has bereft of the strong staff and support of home.

Look on another picture of the home where gambling and kindred evils have never entered. This couple started with little and have had a full share of adversity, but hand in hand, with steady effort, unflagging, unflinching, they have climbed to midlife, to business success, to easy circumstances, to honor, respect, influence, and troops of friends.

’Tis a winter evening; the wind howls in the lonely streets and bites to the bone. Belated people steady themselves in the gale, hurrying homeward. Within this home a glowing fire, with tropic heat and rosy light, paves a plaza of gold across the parlor floor. An astral lamp sheds soft brilliance on the heaped books and on the pictured walls. A lad romps in the firelight, another cons a magazine, a maid of twelve plays while her elder sister sings. The father, looking into the fire, ponders on the past. A chord of music wakes him from his reverie; they are singing “The Palace of the King;” he glances at the wife and says softly, “Alice, sit here a while.” Together they sit and talk of God’s goodness and love till the room broadens into the very vestibule of heaven, and they, through the door ajar, can almost look into the palace of the King. For fifteen years, true to the vows made to each other, true to the vows made to God, they have kept clear of vice and walked humbly, and as the happy wife leads in prayer amid the household, round the family altar, she thanks God that these agencies of the great hater of the soul have no power over Him who is the head of her happy household.

The fourth and last charge I bring against gambling is as heavy as any yet stated, and is the direct and final result of the other three.

It damns the victim’s soul.

Can the transient delights of a few years of idleness and sensual gratification atone for an eternity of banishment from hope and heaven? Will the poor pleasures of the voluptuary, the theater and wine cup, the fast pace, the boughten smiles of wantons, the flashing pin, the showy clothes, the jingling fob, the curled mustache, and the whole empty round which the successful gamester treads, solace him for the loss of his immortal soul? Will the fleeting hours spent with unscrupulous men, adepts in trickery and confidence games, touts and tipsters, skilled in marked cards, bogus boxes, wheels of (mis)fortune and loaded dice, adroit in fascinating the unwary with hollow smiles and lying speeches, like honey mingled in the hemlock’s poisoned draught—will these repay the willing serf of Satan for a life wasted and a soul passed into hell? Surely not all the pleasures of this high domed, blossoming world heaped in the balance can outweigh the loss of heaven.

Is there anything in fallacious hopes, unstable judgment, despairing ventures or desperate ruin, attended by parental grief, rejected love, and never dying remorse, to make men seek the blandishments of iniquity?

Let not this seducer of youth corrupt your morals, pull down your fortune and cloud your future by his false promises. Let the downward career of others prove effectual warning. Rouse not this ungovernable lust for gain by hazard in your breast. Let the lottery, faro bank, pool room, race course, all such places be as pest houses to you, unless you are prepared to brave God’s intolerable scorn.

Remember that the man who, through any device of chance or knavery, takes money without giving anything in return, belongs in the class with the swindler and the thief. Remember that on the track of this evil follow defalcations, embezzlements, breaches of trust, false entries, forgeries, misappropriation of trust funds and crimes innumerable.

Rebuke its insidious flattery with stern face, and do not tamper with the lightest fringe of it.

What palpable political offence is perpetrated on common morality, and what a tension is put up on the minds of the toiling poor, when such corporations as the Louisiana lottery are licensed by the state to torture the people with glittering visions of wealth easily obtainable, and thus induce them to undergo more grinding poverty that every possible pittance may be laid on the altar of this fat idol to be swept into the wallets of the managers.

The burglar and pirate are respectable citizens compared to these vampires. Even the bookmaker, who controls not only the horse, but the jockey on whose skill you fondly hope to get a fair chance to win, is honorable by comparison. I had despaired of finding a match for the lottery shark, until I saw the man who would juggle with corn and wheat, cornering the necessities of life, using the increase on the price of the poor man’s loaf to line his pocket, and by combination of capital and shrewd manipulations of contingencies, making the sewing woman’s oil a little dearer that he might pile his own full board, and indulge in more luxurious or wasteful excess.

I fear these men are nursing a Carracas earthquake under the social system of this fair land.

Let every man to whom my words come, touch not the unclean thing, for,

“Vice is a monster of such hideous mien,

That to be hated needs but to be seen.

But seen too oft, familiar with his face,

We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

This embrace means death for two worlds. Not even the strongest can get free once the shackles are locked on the limbs.

See Manoah’s boy, the brown babe who played beneath the mulberry trees of Judea while his parents reaped the barley and the durrha. Favorite of Jehovah, he grew in stature and strength, till he was the dread of Israel’s foes. When proud Philistia lifted its insolent mouth with curses to God, no angel legion hung pendulous like a white avalanche of wrath above them. No militant host from the blue sky burst to avenge the affront. God summoned this youth, whose neck was like a stag’s for brawn, and o’er whose massive shoulders swept the black terror of his hair, and bade him smite them. How they fled like sheep before him. How he rent the tawny lion jaw from jaw in mid air, as it leaped on the lover faring down to Timnath. Yet, this hero was led decked to the slaughter, blinded and undone by wicked associates; haltered like a beast, he trudged the weary round in the prison house of his foes, because he had not the wisdom to shun evil company.

As I meditate on the ruin of the fine young fellows who come up every year to this city and to all cities, knowing that these words will be tossed by the press into hundreds of quiet rural communities, I am resolved now to put my best energies and most earnest entreaties into this last appeal to young men. You are thinking of coming up to the city. You are set on this purpose; you will not be gainsayed or denied. I do not wish to hinder you if you come, seeking a broader field of usefulness and better opportunities for true success. If you come for pleasure, for mere money getting, or seeking entertainment of the baser sort, stay! We have too many now of that kind. Better your native hills encircled you, and all your days were spent where you were born, than come to the city on such an errand. But if you come to do rightly, live honestly, act manfully and fear God, all will be well. There is need of such men everywhere.

When you are ready to bid farewell to the old place, when you have taken a last look at the old bridge and the stream, the orchard and the lower meadow, when you have seen the swallows in the dusk of the old barn, the bucket in the old well, the pin in the old gate post and the bee hive in the old garden for the last time, when you have plucked a cluster of bloom from the honey locust and a few sweet pinks from the side of the path, and have kissed your sisters and cheered your father with the promise, “I will be home for Christmas,” while the stage is coming up the hill and your best boy friend holds your satchel at the roadside, dear boy, turn for a moment, climb up the stairs where mother is—you know the room, the room which is the holy of holies in any house, “Mother’s room”—kneel with her by the bed, and let that last tender prayer sink like a plummet into the crystal depths of your unpolluted soul. Take the little Bible she gave you out of your pocket, and ask her to write upon the fly leaf the single word that Duncan Matheson, the evangelist, wanted engraved upon his tombstone—the one word, “Kept.”

Now, with the chrism of that trusting mother’s kiss upon your forehead, come on, you are ready for battle—of such stuff are freedom’s young apostles made. The kings of commerce are always looking for well favored and spotless young men.

On the cars coming here you may meet the gambler. He will enter into conversation with you, he is well-informed and companionable. His genial manner and friendly style will impress you; by and by he will invite you into the smoking car to take a hand in a game of cards. Resent the implied indignity. Tell him you would rather get out and ride in a cattle car the balance of the way than mix fraternally with his breed. He will not withstand the fire in your eye, and the scorn in your speech. He will skulk off with a low oath, half hissed between his teeth. He will, however, have a higher opinion of the intelligence of the young man he mistook for a greenhorn, and you will be on better terms with yourself, and feel no accusing pangs of self-reproach from your conscience.

You will meet him or his mate afterwards on the street, in depots, restaurants, lobbies and offices. He will be affable and solicitous. Never exchange civilities with him, let your indignation burn at his approach, use the scourge of righteous wrath on him, and he will flee from your presence.

You will soon learn that while the gambler works hand in glove with every evil doer, his favorite co-worker and sharer in his unholy earnings is the scarlet woman. It would be safe to say that one-third of all the lost women of our cities are affiliated with men who live by schemes of chance and by the knavery which accompanies such trades. And thus, hand in hand, the sharper and the soiled dove, the sediment of society, the dregs of moral abomination, go down the broad road together. Keep far from this pair.

“Do good, my friend, and let who will be clever,

Do noble things, not dream them all day long.

And so make life and death and that vast forever,

One grand sweet song.”song.”

Think not that there are no high-toned and godly young men in these great cities. Here are many of heroic mould, born and bred in the din of the town. They have kept their hands as stainless, their speech as pure, their hearts as gentle, as any reared in the quiet hamlets of the country. They are men of mettle, grounded in good principles, established and fixed, not fluctuating and unreliable.

A wise writer says when a young man has learned that he can be depended on, he is already of some account in the world. These young men have learned that. They have many pleasures and choice delights, but they reject the gamblers’ villainous bribes and flee his contaminating society, well aware, by the testimony of many unimpeachable witnesses, that his primrose path, which seemed so pleasant to the eye, ends in a labyrinth of remorse, whence the reprobate can no more return to fellowship with men.

There is in some parts of the West a periodical disease called the ague. It passes through phases of chills, sweats, nausea, discoloration and fever. When the fever seems to be grilling the sufferer, he sometimes has a slight delirium and vividly imagines that he is two persons—two separate and distinct personalities of the Jekyll and Hyde type—one is a kindly, courteous, clean man, ready to help anyone, quick to befriend and forward all who need his aid. The other is a cringing, envious, scowling loafer. The sick man sees these two sitting, one on each side of the bed, and each of them is he. A strange delusion, is it not? Yet, not so visionary as you might suppose. It is strictly scriptural and squares with experience.

The evil nature and the good are present in every man. His breast is the arena of a gladitorialgladitorial combat between these two. St. Paul says, “I keep my body under.” That is, he held his carnal nature down under the feet of his spiritual nature.nature.

In this fight the devil squires the evil, low-browed, lustful half of you. It is possible with help from on high, to beat these allies. St. John says, “I write unto you, young men, because you are strong, and have overcome the wicked one.”one.”

What young men did then they can do to-day—master Satan and control the lower part of their natures, letting the higher and better part predominate, thus securely laying hold on eternal life.

The so-called pleasure of a life of sin is but a cup of cordial offered a condemned man on the way to execution; a feast of Damocles with the naked sword, thread-hung above the head; a dipping the hand in Belshazzar’s dainty dish, while the Divine finger writes the soul’s woe upon the wall.

In all this article I have been like one who anchors buoys above sunken rocks in the channel where many have gone down. I have been hanging red lamps above the slime pits of the city’s streets.

As the Alpine dwellers set a cross on the brink of a torrent or the verge of an abyss, to mark the spot where men have met death, so I have tried to lift up the symbol of salvation and keep the wayfarer from destruction.

If a man loses one fortune, he may accumulate another; if he lose a hand, he has another; if an eye, he can still make his way, but if his soul is lost, all is lost.

How can a sane man risk this soul and gamble with Belial, knowing the total renunciation of all joy that must follow its loss—to trudge forever the vassal of the slave of slaves through a sunless, starless eternity.

A spot is shown at Niagara where a child was dashed to death. A father, intending to give his child a slight fright, lifted her over the flood. A paroxysm of fear twisted the little one in his hands. She slipped—fell, her death shriek filling him with anguish as the seething flood swept the babe from his sight forever. Fool! fool! you say. Right; he was a fool, but what accusation will be brought against the man who stands at last, abashed and guilty, charged with flinging his soul into insatiable hell. Even when the gambler’s soul is saved, much that makes this life good is lost forever. The author of this volume has to drink this cup of bitterness to the dregs. His wicked life made a false charge seem plausible. A crime was fathered on him of which he was innocent. No virtues rose to plead trumpet tongued in his behalf; he had been a wrong-doer from early youth, so he was made to suffer. O, if he could live life over; the door is shut. O, if he could go among men, where talents and present longings fit him to go; the door is shut. O, if the one fair babe who once climbed to his knee could but smile up to him now and bruise his name to sweetness on his baby lips in the fashion of the old times. If that white hand could lay its benediction on his brow, with the silk soft touch of long ago. Alas, the door is shut. If that wife, so dear to him through all the dishonored years, could be restored, could walk with him hand in hand through the evening shadows across the home-leading fields where their babe waits their coming at the gate. O, that it could be. How immeasurable the loss entailed by him who is taken in the gamblers’ toils.

Perchance, these words may come under the eye of one whose brow bears already the stigma of this craft.

Brother, there must be hidden somewhere in your heart a remnant of your early purity. Drop the implements of your calling; let my hand slip into yours; come apart where we can sit and talk together. Pardon me if I press the question home to your conscience. What is to be the outcome of all this? Shake off the palsy of years, I pray you, and essay an answer. I wait to hear your own verdict on your case. You cannot always be blind to the havoc you are making; you cannot always be deaf to the piteous cries that go up to heaven’s chancery from women and children, kenneled in extreme want by reason of your profession. You blandly ask me Cain’s question: “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Listen to Tennyson’s answer, adapted to your sneering philosophy, that each must look out for himself:

Of all arts there is but one more hated of men than yours, that of the procuress, who flings shrinking innocence into the arms of lust. You may only mean to strip away from man his temporal possessions. This is atrocious. But, my friend, do you not see that the secondary result is to put the souls of men and women into the grip of the demon, whose unsated lust ever asks for more? Above the brand of gambler must be stamped “Procurer for Perdition,” a soul-hunting hound, who, with the filthy pack, runs helpless ones into the dungeon of the lords of hell.

Rise up, shake off this dark enchantment—dash down the dice, shred the cards into the flames—pass out into the pure air, and while there yet is hope ask heavenly help to break your heavy chains.

Yours is the very insanity of crime; like the imprisoned eagle who might swim the blue sky and bathe in the sun, you are caged in a dungeon’s walls. Nature cannot furnish nor the imagination create a figure of speech to parallel your unfortunate condition.

Let us go back to first principles and ask, “What is a man? What was the Maker’s design when he fashioned man?” After creation was completed from chaos to order, from darkness to light, from the lowest polyp, through crinoid batrachian, reptile, fish, bird, to the highest mammals, God paused to consider what likeness the Prince of this earthly creation should wear. He was to be the link binding heaven and earth, animal and angel, material and spiritual, so that an unbroken chain of life might exist from the loftiest archangelarchangel to the lowest monad, related to both spheres and completing all; his body from one world, his soul from the other.

“What fashion shall he be formed in?” Was the question which seemed to give the Creator pause. None of the lower creatures would do for a model, as he must govern them and be superior to them. Surely some of the angelic or seraphic ones will be chosen as the pattern! They were mighty, beatific and holy; in favor with God and obedient to his behests.

If some shining one from beside the throne, who had been wrapt in the serene presence of the Uncreate, had been chosen, what an honor to be like him! But such a one is not selected. As our Father in Heaven thinks of his Child that is to be, we hear the mysterious declaration, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” And so it was.

Consider the supreme honor done us in this act. God could find no being but himself fit to be thy pattern, and wilt thou for whom he passed the hierarchs of glory by, stoop to such groveling ingratitude as to ignore him and humiliate thy brother man?

Oh, that I could inspire you to cast these cords far from you, and rise toward that mark set for you by our kind and ever present Lord. Come out from among these Philistines.

I would as soon expect to grow a plant under the dripping of vitrol or in the fumes of sulphur as in such a place, and if you willfully persist in impiety, you must expect retribution to overtake your impenitence and the last door of hope will be shut.

Remember:

“There is woe whose pang

Outlasts the fleeting breath.

Oh, what eternal horrors hang

Around the second death.”

Perhaps you came out of a religious home and had a legacy of faithful prayers; a pious parent dedicated you to God in infancy, and as the baptisimal drops fell on your baby brow, they fervently hoped that your nature might know the inward cleansing of which that rite was the outward sign.

All the riches of Midas would not give you such pleasure as the memories of that dear old couple, if you were in the way they trod so long. Oft in the village church, or at the cottage altar, your father, bowed with white hair and dim eye, lifted his voice in supplication for you. Oft he led you o’er the hill on Sabbath Day, pensive, rejoicing, giving you good counsel in quiet tones, or telling at dusk with open Bible, and the family in a circle about him, some rich story of Holy Writ, which now comes back at times in the quaint old-fashioned words to your remembrance as you trample daily on the truth he taught you. A verse of some melodious hymn sung by your mother floats up out of the past, sweeter than opera strains to you.

Can the driveling ditties and sentimental songs affected by your associates drown the cadence of that tender old voice crooning the songs of Zion? Often she looked in your eyes. They were not bloodshot then, not dim with vigils at the iniquitous game, but pure and deep as the wells of Gaza; your face was as the dawn to her, your forehead candid and fair.

What dreams she had of your useful and exalted career. Has it all come to this? Are you not glad the saintly old couple are asleep on the hillside under the yew trees, with eyes closed and hands folded in the long rest! Could you revisit that place you would not care to meet old friends, they might ask annoying questions and start vain regrets. You would just slip out half a mile to that burial ground, every step seeming to make your burden heavier, every moment to aggravate your unbearable guilt. Once there, by those two graves, alone, unseen of man, you would bow and put your face in the grass, weeping that you could get no nearer to the beloved ones. This you would do, and it would be the manliest thing you have done for many a miserable month.

There is a manlier yet. That old couple is not there; they are nearer to you than that in spirit, they are not far from you now. Better than tears to them would be the solemn resolution to leave this moment and for aye the guilty men and evil trade which have brought you low.

Give me thy hand, man! Look level in my eyes! Gird up thy loins, there is help nigh.

Break away! Break away! All may yet be forgiven and atoned for. Pluck up heart. You shall yet praise God with all your ransomed powers. Your heart shall cast forth its idols, and shall let all its tendrils of affection curl and twine about the Cross. Your soul shall adore Him and have one object of worship. He shall have full dominion over you. Your mind with all its renewed faculties shall exult in liberty. Even your body shall share in the general joy and fulfill all its functions with a glad obedience unknown before.

A traveler who had put a girdle round the earth and studied many nations, was asked to relate the most thrilling incident of his long and eventful life. He hesitated long, hushed in thought, and said: “It occurred just before the civil war. I was crossing from this country to Canada in a ferry boat. The captain knew me, as I had often crossed with him. Midstream he touched my arm and said, ‘Come with me, I will show you something worth seeing.’ I followed him to the dark coal hole of the craft, and when my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, I saw crouching in a corner a black man, an escaped slave. Helped through the North by friends, he was nearing liberty; for no shackles could come, no slave hunter tread the soil where floated the flag of England. As the boat neared the shore the captain beckoned to him, and while we all gazed on him he crept to the bow, impatient to gain the shore. Never on any face have I seen such burning eagerness. As the keel touched the gravel, with a mighty shout he bounded into the water, waded ashore, all dripping, and turning his great eyes to the heavens, his chest heaving with emotion, he cried, ‘O God! O God! At last! At last! I’se free! I’se free!’

“There,” said the traveler, “I saw the greatest spectacle of my life, a soul springing full statured from slave to man in an hour.”

Surely ’twas a stirring sight, but there is an escape more moving yet—to see the slave of evil habits long driven by his task master, cross the line to moral manhood and break into the larger liberty of the gospel.

I have seen it done—seen the drunkard snap his shackles—the bondman of habit leap out of his old sins with a mighty effort, and begin a new life.

The truth is seeking an entrance into your heart, even as the sunbeams seek entrance into a long disused and darkened room. How patiently they play about the door, peeping into every crevice, slipping wedges of gold through the shutters and laying bars of bullion on the dusty floor. “Let us in,” they cry, “we will cast out the devils of gloom, disease, dirt, dampness. Let us in.”

Every dawn they come again to plead, every sundown they go reluctantly away. At last, the master from within flings open the door, pushes wide the shutters, lifts the windows, and in they rush to rinse every nook, cleanse every corner, reveal every stain, and they will not be satisfied till all is renewed, swept and garnished within.

You wonder, like the prodigal, sometimes, if you would be received if you returned. Listen to that broken column of marble, lying there among the rubbish. I thought I heard it laugh. There it is again. Listen! Hear it saying, “Oh, happy stone that I am.” Others sneer and say, “What is there to give you happiness, lying there forsaken, among the debris of this old temple?” “I rejoice,” replies the blackened pillar, “not“not for what I am, but for what I am to be. The great sculptor, Angelo, was here to-day. He measured me, he made a mark on me. I heard him say as he looked at me, ‘This will do.’”

“A block of marble caught the beam of Bunarrotti’s eyes,

Which lighted in their darkling depths like meteor lighted skies,

And one who stood beside him listened, smiling as he heard,

‘For I will make an angel of it,’ was the sculptor’s word.

Then chisel sharp, and mallet strong, that stubborn block assailed,

And blow by blow, and pang by pang, the prisoner unveiled;

A brow was lifted, pure and high, a waking eye outshone

And as the master swiftly wrought, a smile broke through the stone.

Beneath that chisel’s edge, the hair escaped inin flowing rings,

And plume by plume were slowly freed, the sweep of half furled wings,

The stately bust, the shapely limbs their stony fetters shed,

And where the shapeless block had been, an angel stood instead.

Oh, blows that smite, oh, pangs that pierce this shrinking heart of mine,

What are ye but the Master’s tools, forming a work divine?

Oh, hope that crumbles at my feet, oh, joy that mocks and flies,

What are ye but the bond that keeps my spirit from the skies?

Sculptor of souls, I lift to Thee my cumbered heart and hands,

Spare not the chisel, set me free, however dear the bands;

How blest if all these seeming ills which turn my heart to Thee,

Shall only prove that Thou wilt make an angel out of me.”

Even within the vilest sinner, there is a glorious possibility. Once in the hands of Christ, hidden beauty will shine forth and deformity will disappear. So beautiful will he make the soul that it will be fit for the inheritance of the saints in light.

Weep not over misspent youth, much may yet be done, even now. Crippled as you are, you may have a little work to show in return for His love. You may never have as much as others, but there is this consolation, you may love Him as dearly, obey Him as implicitly, follow Him as closely, and suffer for Him as gladly, as any of His church.

Sometimes I think you can know Him better for your very misery. Hear the ninety and nine telling the praises of the Good Shepherd; how he has led them, folded them, defended them. When all have spoken in concurrent testimony, the lost sheep, crippled, scarred, torn, speaks in tones low and full of pathos: “All you have said is true, but none of you know the dear Shepherd as I know him. I am the most unworthy of all, yet into the hills, among the wolves, in the dark night, through the cold streams, He came seeking me. I was bleeding, mangled on the rocks, ready to die. Through the pelting of the pitiless storm I heard Him call my name, saying, ‘Come home, come home.’ Tenderly he lifted me, gently bound up my wounds, patiently he carried me all the way. Ah, you know something of His love, but I know nothing else.”else.”

So it is. There is room in His mercy for all, and if there is no other gate into the city of refuge that you dare to enter, hold my hand and together we will go into this one, which he opened for us.

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Robt McIntyre

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Transcriber’s Note

This text, frankly, is rife with errors. It is often not possible to attribute the errors of spelling and punctuation to the author or the printer. Generally, obvious punctuation errors (missing periods, unbalanced quotation marks, etc.) have been corrected, and noted in the table below.

Typographical mistakes (e.g. inverted or transposed letters, doubled syllables on line breaks, ‘halt’ for ‘half’, etc.) are also corrected and noted.

Spelling errors are more problematic. Where other instances of a word are spelled correctly (by our standards),they are noted and corrected. The Single instances are noted, but remain uncorrected. Many very obvious mistakes (e.g., conspicious, sufficent, countenaces) have been corrected. The goal was to render the text readable while preserving as accurately as possible the author’s intent.

In passages of extended quotation, the author (or printer) regularly fails to be consistent in the use of quotations marks, either failing to include the opening mark on continuing paragraphs, or neglecting to nest them properly using single marks.

In the section of Part I, Chapter II on “Hindoos”, a quoted narrative beginning on the bottom of p. 75 abandons the use of enclosing double quotation marks for each paragraph by the top of p. 77.

A quote purportedly from the Eclectic Magazine of May, 1885, beginning on p. 148, fails to clearly finish, with a confusion of quotation marks making that a matter of speculation. That volume of the magazine has no article regarding gambling (which might have allowed a correct scope for the passage).

On pp. 431-437, a letter and an extended description of various gambling devices uses only a single opening quotation, and is distinguished from the main text only by the use of a smaller font.

Beginning on p. 178, a passage from the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1796 is quoted, but the quotation marks are inconsistently applied. These have been corrected for clarity. There are several points, where the author lapses into paraphrase, that are left intact here.

Rather than attempting to regularize the punctuation of these passages, the text is given as printed.

The author employs borrowed French words usually without providing accents.

The name ‘Petitt’ is also found as ‘Pettit’ and since the former was more frequently the case, the several instances of the latter were corrected.

On p. 474, there are several paragraphs which repeat verbatim a passage appearing on p. 472, beginning with ‘Lottery playing has always...’ and ending three paragraphs later with ‘...so popular among the people at large as was the Havana Lottery.’ This is without doubt a typesetting error, and the redundant passage has been removed. The removed paragraphs occurred here.

In discussing the South Sea Bubble, the author repeatedly refers to Tobias Smollet as ‘Smallet’ or ‘Smallett’. Each variant has been retained and noted.

Hyphenation of compound words follows the text. Where the hyphen appears on a line or page break, it is kept or discarded in keeping with other instances.

Inconsistencies in the punctuation of the Index are corrected without further mention here.

The references in this table are to the page and line in the original.

8.11	“knowledge of good and evil.[’/”]	Replaced.
10.35	“Striking the White Dove[”]	Added.
14.48	“Ropers” and [“]Steerers”	Added.
18.25	“Straddles”[—]Fictitious	Added.
24.34	his policy [to-]toward gambling, 404.	Removed.
37.4	it may serve to illus[s]trate	Removed.
40.42	failed to d[e/i]scover the right one.	Replaced.
50.25	as thereupon made again[s]t me	Added.
51.32	cared little[.]	Added.
54.8	The latter was cor[r]oborated by his wife	Inserted.
55.28	They had kind[s] words for us	Removed.
55.29	in that hour of our humil[i]ation	Inserted.
55.32	by that ma[t]chless orator	Inserted.
56.22	he proceeded to Indian[o/a]polis	Replaced.
97.33	gamble for ‘Loukouni,’	sic Loukoumi?
60.8	a Young Men’s Christian Association[”]	Removed.
63.7	[“/‘]God bless mamma and papa ...	Replaced.
63.8	... and everybody. Amen.[’]”	Inserted.
58.43	such a [grievious] wrong,	sic grievous
75.43	more a matter of chance[.]	Added.
79.16	[“]What waste of words	Added.
84.38	who were conspic[i/u]ous for	Replaced.
85.5	Two Ta[n/ou]ist priests	Replaced.
87.36	It consisted of three sixes on the te[rr/ss]esarae	Replaced.
89.23	at the battle of [Acton]?	sic Actium
94.15	which pierced the mirror behind him.[”]	Added.
97.6	advertisements of the [sanitive] properties	sic sanative
98.6	they can earn money so easily?[’]	Added.
102.23	described them as [“]arrayed	sic: unclosed quote.
112.12	is now the only social entertainment[s] of the salons	Removed.
110.22	[“]Her husband,	Added.
110.28	[“]There was an expression	Added.
110.36	[“]Another figure at the gaming table	Added.
111.2	that she was an Englishwoman.[”]	Added.
117.12	is the last and sole represen[ta]tive of the class	Inserted.
117.17	a suffic[i]ent guarantee	Inserted.
120.3	to violence, drunken[n]ess and gaming	Inserted.
122.27	the oldest magistrate in the [parliment]	sic parlement or parliament
122.41	in fullness of their te[r]merity	Removed.
123.40	to such a noble position,[”]	Added.
127.23	A large propor[tion] of the patrons	Missing.
128.19	some sort of lia[i]son	Inserted.
128.36	has long been ended.[”]	Added.
129.41	of the game on a Mississipp[p]i river boat	Removed.
131.4	he said[,] “until one evening in 1872	Added.
135.6	in other European countries[.]	Added.
136.9	do not play for gain but for pleasure.[”]	Added.
141.1	and his footman told me so,” he replied.[”]	Removed.
141.33	the catastrophe of Sir [, ——/ ——,] who has frittered away	Comma moved.
141.39	but there was nothing done.[”]	Added.
143.19	are said to be fully £150,000 ($750,000[.)/).]	Transposed.
144.7	[‘/“]The ‘hells’ generally	Replaced.
145.19	accumulated a col[l]ossal fortune	Removed.
148.10	another occas[s]ion he kept the bank	Removed.
148.28	succ[c/e]eded in winning back	Replaced.
150.38	which the police raid from time to time.[”]	Removed.
152.19	“Roulette, £1,000 in the bank[.]”	Added.
154.40	If the caster throws d[ue/eu]ces or aces	Transposed.
155.23	portrayed on the countena[n]ces of the players	Inserted.
156.30	they are at their own homes.[’]	Added.
160.23	as [Smallett] has truly called it	sic Smollett
162.1	says [Smallet],	sic Smollett
162.30	Smallett gives us	sic Smollett
163.6	interfered with the usefuln[e]ss of servants	Inserted.
163.38	under a pen[alty] of 40s	Completed.
163.43	a monthly penalty of 40s. for every default.[”]	Added.
166.25	he hastily decamped[.]	Added,
170.40	to jeopardize them again[.]	Added.
173.3	he soon bec[o/a]me an ensign	Replaced.
174.16	[“]When King James ascended	Removed.
174.15	was very glad of his absence.”	Added.
174.30	by which those famil[i]ar with the tricks	Inserted.
178.12	the latter apol[i/o]gized for becoming intoxicated	Replaced.
179.4	where I am to be found.[”/’]	Replaced.
179.24	[”]Mr. Justice Rooke summed up the evidence	Added.
179.26	[“/‘manslaughter[’/”	Replaced.
179.41	was another eminent Englishm[e/a]n	Replaced.
179.43	[“/‘]We played a good deal at [“/‘]Goosetree’s[’]”	Replaced/Added.
180.10	[“/‘]What, Wilberfor[c]e is that you?[”/’]	Corrected/inserted.
180.16	Miles’ and ‘Evans’[,] Brooks[,] Boodle’s, White’s and Goosetree’s.	Added.
181.10	“Twenty-five guineas,[”] answered the alderman.	Added.
182.12	The cases of Lords Halifax, Ang[el/le]sey	Transposed.
186.32	and by the [decrepted] old negro	sic decrepit
189.14	the will of the people[.]	Added.
196.2	(“Make your play, gentlemen!” “Nothing more goes!”[)]	Added.
198.13	to pull from the ends like “rakes[:/.]”	Replaced.
200.4	which will be explained[.]	Added.
201.21	to the grating of the finger nails[.]	Added.
201.40	in advance of the de[s/c]k	Replaced.
207.1	Here’s your money old man.[”]	Added.
208.17	entered the ap[p]artment	Removed.
212.22	Close[,] one of the best known	Added.
214.2	one of the “peculiar institutions[”]	Added.
216.24	[“]When a player puts in that much	Removed.
218.18	instead of saying [‘/“]I bet,”	Replaced.
219.31	which may [h/b]e held by players	Replaced.
222.33	a moral impossibility for the unsoph[ist]icated	Inserted.
226.26	until number 3 has “staked” his [“]pile.”	Added.
227.19	the person to who[w/m] he wishes to give	Inverted.
230.44	In some of the succe[e]ding paragraphs	Inserted.
236.27	he bet wildly on his adve[r]sary’s deal	Inserted.
236.39	the foot of the operator accident[al]ly slipped	Inserted.
242.4	a liberal supply of worthless checks[.]	Added.
244.29	and the [apperture] in the box	sic aperture
246.39	While a rouge et no[u/i]r table	Replaced.
248.9	marked “[B/R],” is for wagers on the red	Replaced.
248.24	the first and last hal[t/f] of the numbers	Replaced.
252.15	is thus enabled t[e/o] win through fraud	Replaced.
254.7	Two it[e/i]nerant sharpers	Replaced.
254.14	and that—to use a colloqu[i]alism—	Inserted.
257.10	holding neither face cards no[t/r] tens	Replaced.
260.3	it makes not the sligh[t]est difference	Inserted.
264.9	I’m your man for twenty or so.[’]”	Removed.
266.37	“Briefs” may also be advantageou[s]ly used	Inserted.
267.42	“just a little higher.[”]	Added.
268.1	[“]When a “gudgeon” displays	Removed.
270.4	the kingdom of Great Brit[ia/ai]n	Transposed.
271.22	with absolute certain[i]ty	Removed.
271.39	that will fill the d[a/e]aler[’]s hand	Replaced/Inserted.
272.4	they already hold nineteen or twenty[,/.]	Replaced.
273.15	in the land of the Pharoahs	sic Pharaohs
273.29	will be treated seriatum	sic seriatim
274.10	on the corresponding squares on the cloth[,/.]	Replaced.
275.3	has never [occured] to him	sic occurred
275.21	“the old army [“]game,”	Removed.
277.36	the other dice is in[s]cribed	Inserted.
282.29	that his luck may not ap[p]ear	Inserted.
284.5	of an immense n[e/u]mber of “fakirs,”	Replaced.
287.37	as explained above[.]	Added.
288.29	the “book-keeper[”] occasionally brings	Added.
290.36	By simply pressing on this [mechanicism]	sic mechanism
295.40	(as shown in fig. [1/2])	Corrected. Fig. 2 is unlabelled.
369.37	the hair escaped i[u/n] flowing rings	Inverted.
300.12	a “[a ]sure winner” for the manipulator	Removed.
301.32	the proprietor knows [t/w]hat number	Replaced.
309.31	and will also give him a gratuit[i]ous chance	Removed.
312.15	The inherent [villany] of such a transaction	sic villainy
312.26	is substantially as describ[e]d below	Inserted.
314.35	“Why,[”] man, Mississippi is a big State,	Removed.
314.36	What city?[”]	Added.
316.2	from the hands of his friend[.]	Added.
316.16	with which the sc[r]oundrels have taken	Removed.
318.35	[‘/“]Beyond a question.”	Replaced.
320.26	He said, ‘An Indian ain’t got any rights anyhow[,/.]	Replaced.
321.19	and sell it outright[/?]”	Replaced.
321.33	the height of the ho[n/u]ses	Inverted.
331.11	by members of the fraternity as “send”[.]	Added.
334.22	as they lie upon the table[.]	Added.
336.18	in having a second conf[i]ederate	Removed.
338.14	the“agent[”] of the gift distribution scheme	Added.
341.4	he (the sharper) ia the[;] agent	Removed.
341.30	submits to his loss without a [murmer].	sic murmur
353.18	bet on a certainty.[”]	Removed.
353.40	you shentlemen’s want nohow?[”]	Added.
355.28	The “soap man” t[u/a]kes his position	Replaced.
357.15	with the fleet-f[l]ooted runner.
545.43	“Sock” Ri[el]le]y	Transposed.
547.35	whose steps take hold on hell[.]	Added.
549.34	and at first with var[r]ying success.	Removed.
557.13	[I]t became generally recognized	Added.
561.8	that is, the individu[a]l chances	Inserted.
565.4	to have been a large field of favorites[.]	Added.
573.23	to individual policeme[u/n]	Replaced.
577.20	the sale of commodit[i]es	Inserted.
579.6	It follows that he is natu[u/r]ally	Replaced.
584.20	is incomprehensible to the uni[ni]tiated	Inserted.
587.26	was the outgrowth of disappointed[,] self-seeking	Removed.
590.32	jammed with a[u/n] excited throng	Inverted.
595.23	the [“]dissemination of valuable commercial	Added.
596.4	the self-stultification went even farther[,/.]	Replaced.
596.35	spots upon the b[ody]	Restored.
596.36	the very heart of so[cial] morals	Restored.
601.14	the fungus-like excres[c]ence	Inserted.
607.13	Astronomy helped make Newton[;/,] art made Angelo,	Replaced.
613.2	every released convict[,/.]	Replaced.
613.5	[s/S]ir, tell them this	Capitalized.
615.9	I never cou[n]tenanced the evil	Inserted.
615.40	the big winning last night.[”]	Added.
620.33	within all is punk and hollowness[.]	Added.
623.30	I can win my bread.[”]	Added.
625.12	forehead of his child with such a wrong[”]	Added.
625.17	while the meta[l]lic	Inserted.
625.22	to con[s]ciousness	Inserted.
633.43	One grand sweet song.[”]	Added.
634.27	[gladitorial] combat	sic
634.29	his spiritual nature[.]	Added.
634.33	the wicked one.[”]	Added.
636.6	define it well[/,]	Replaced.
636.32	the loftiest archang[le/el]	Transposed.
639.23	[“] for what I am not	Added.
640.22	but I know nothing el                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Clyx.com