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.”