In conclusion, I would say to those who have perused this work, so full of strange and startling incidents, let not their mysterious and dark character cause you to doubt of their truth. Recollect that there are strange events in the life of every man, many of which he cannot fathom; and were the whole circumstances of your own life disclosed, it is not impossible that many of them would exceed belief. Horrible as is the picture of depravity here exhibited, the half has not been told, nor would I reveal one iota more than I deemed necessary to awaken the public attention to a sense of their danger, and a corresponding sense of their duty. Reader, you may be standing upon the edge of a precipice, though you know it not. Fathers, your sons may frequent these haunts of vice, and be entangled in the snares of the destroyer. Wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, lend us your aid to save those you love from destruction. You need not be ignorant, that around you are hundreds of individuals who live in affluence upon the spoils of their industry. It is not gamblers that support gaming. If the merchant, and lawyer, and tradesman, and the man of fortune did not supply them with the material, their profession would die. In all my works I have shown how gambling lends to, and is connected with, all other crimes; and I beseech you, as you love your families, yourselves, and our common country, that you lend your aid and influence to abate this evil. This vast conspiracy against your lives and fortunes, which I have here developed, is no chimera. Its workings are everywhere felt, though the machinery is unseen. I have no object but your good in making this disclosure; and should it meet the eye, as I have no doubt it will, of some one not a stranger to its crimes, I beseech him to consider his ways. Why should he live a curse to the earth—a destroyer of his kind—a blot upon creation—a dishonour to his Maker? Heaven and earth are equally ready to receive the returning prodigal. The only danger—the only disgrace is to continue where you are. In behalf of our Maker, in behalf of humanity, in behalf of all that is noble and virtuous, I beseech you to turn, why will ye die?
DEBATE ON GAMBLING,
BETWEEN
Mr. Freeman the avowed gambler, and Mr. Green, the reformed gambler; before the citizens of Philadelphia, in the Lecture-room of the Chinese Museum, on the Evenings of the 10th, 13th, and 15th of May, 1847.
Mr. Freeman's challenge, and Mr. Green's acceptance, as published in the papers of the city of Philadelphia.
From the Inquirer.
It is well known that Mr. Green, the Reformed Gambler, gave a Lecture at the Museum on Monday night last, in which he exposed the arts and devices of the Gambling Fraternity of the Union. His audience was quite large, and his illustrations were listened to with no little interest. It seems from the following article, which we copy from the Sun of yesterday, that a professional Gambler was present. His Card or Challenge is quite a curiosity:
Mr. Editor:—Having attended the Lecture of J. H. Green, last evening, at the Chinese Museum, on the popular vice of Gambling, and differing from him in each and in every view which he took, and which he is in the habit of taking upon that subject, I beg leave respectfully to say to him through the medium of your columns, that I have made up my mind to confront him in debate, in regard to the right and wrong of the subject in question. I say, I am willing so to do, provided it meets his views, and those of the community. If he, and those who admire his theory, are the friends of truth, surely they will not shrink from investigation?—and if I cannot sustain myself in debate, why, his triumph will add strength to his cause.
With regard to who I am, I will say in a single word that I am a professional Gambler. I shall set out, if we meet, to prove to the audience, among other things, that in his illustrations of the cheatery which he says the gambler practices upon his victim, he is actually at that very moment practising a palpable cheat upon the very audience which he is proposing to enlighten. As regards any profits that may arise from such a meeting, I want none, although perhaps as needy as Mr. Green.
As regards experience in debate, Mr. G. has decidedly the advantage of me in that respect. I have had the honour of addressing public audiences four times in my whole life, and but four—two of these were in favour of Old Tip, in 1840, and the other two upon the subject of temperance. I am well aware that there are many persons who would look upon it as a sort of inconsistency that a man, occupying my position, should be the honest advocate of temperance—but they so reason because they are uninformed in regard to the higher order of gambling!