More than human wisdom and effort is required to master the ruling and inherent passion of universal man. Moreover, if the law is to successfully suppress public gambling, it must be by enactments falling with equal weight, and operating with just severity on all practitioners of the principle which it is the object of the law to discountenance; and not by measures protecting one class of offenders and punishing another; not by exempting those high in social position, while those of lowly estate are made to feel the heavy hand of authority. If at all, it is to be accomplished only by striking at the whole system of gaming, as far as the law can effect the object, upon one great principle, letting law go hand in hand with justice, in the work, so that it err not in the principle of its enactments or in the equity of its administration.
HEBREWS, PERSIANS, CHINESE AND JAPANESE.
The Hebrews, in resorting to the casting of lots, believed it was an appeal to the Lord. It was not thought to be gambling. It is useful that the reader should understand this. Thus by lot it was determined which of the goats should be offered by Aaron; by lot the land of Canaan was subdivided; by lot Saul was chosen to wear the crown; by lot Jonah was discovered to be the cause of the storm. It is well to note that herein gambling had its sacred origin. Man cannot easily surrender the idea that Heaven directs the casting of a die. It is possible that man founds his passion for hazard upon his love of the mystic. Yet no laws are so exact as the laws of chance, and none are so sure to seize on those laws as the professional gambler. The priests of Egypt assured Herodotus that one of their kings visited alive the infernal regions, and that he there gambled with a large party. Plutarch recites an Egyptian story to the effect that Mercury having fallen in love with the earth, and wishing to do the earth a favor, gambled with the moon, and won from the moon every seventieth part of the time she illumined the earth. Out of these seventieth parts Mercury made five days, and added them to the earth’s year, which had formerly held but 360 days.
The examples of these gods could not but move the people to gamble. We know that the vice prevailed because we discover the existence of heavy penalties against it. In Egypt, if a person were convicted of the crime of dice-playing, or of being a gamester, he was sent to work in the quarries, to recruit those vast companies which were continually engaged in public enterprises, such as the pyramids, the labyrinth, the artificial lake and the lesser monuments.
Persians.—We gather that gaming with dice was a fashionable diversion at the Persian court 400 years before Christ, from the historical anecdotes recited by Plutarch in his life of Artaxerxes. The younger Cyrus, son of Queen Parysatis, had been killed at the order of Artaxerxes by a favorite slave of the king; and the queen, who was the mother also of Artaxerxes, burned secretly for revenge on the slave, whose name was Mesabetes. But as the slave had merely obeyed the monarch, her son, the Queen laid this snare for him. She excelled at playing a certain game of dice. She had apparently forgiven her elder son, the King, for his cruel deed, and joined him continually at play. One day she proposed playing for a stake of $500, to which the King agreed, and she, feigning lack of skill, lost the money, and paid it on the nail. But affecting sorrow and vexation over her ill-luck, she pressed the King to play for a slave, as if her cash were short. The King suspected nothing, and accepted the stake. It was stipulated that the winner should choose the slave. Now the Queen resorted to all the arts of gaming, which easily procured a victory. She chose Mesabetes, the slayer of Cyrus, and this slave, being delivered into her hands, was put to the most cruel tortures, and to death. When the King would have interfered, she only replied with a smile of contempt: “Surely you must be a great loser, to be so much out of temper for giving up a decrepit old slave, when I, who lost $500, and paid on the spot, do not say a word, and am satisfied.”
To properly understand this story, it must be remembered that a slave had no rights whatever, being treated simply as cattle. Should a man express pity for a rat in the teeth of a terrier, he would be on a par with Artaxerxes if he pitied Mesabetes. The grief of the outwitted King was unmanly, from the ancient standpoint, but it is notable that dice ministered to the plot of revenge and murder.
The laws of the modern Persians, who are Mohammedans, prohibit all gambling. The Persians evade the sin by making alms of their winnings—a sorry device, for it is only the robbery of Peter to give larger to Paul. Like all other evasions, even this practice soon degenerates into gambling pure and simple, the excuse being that skill more than chance has to do with the game. The public spirit, however, is happily adverse to the practice, and any gambling-place is called in detestation, a morgue, a carrion-house, a “habitation of corrupted carcasses.”
The Hindoos.—At the “Festival of Lamps,” in honor of the goddess of wealth, the Rajpoots make a religion of gambling. At such a time vice may indeed prosper. Easy was the conquest of a people whose sensuality and superstition could be so well united in the service of the priesthood. The specialties of Hindoo gambling are interesting. The hot climate stimulates the passion, and the greater the Raja, or King, the longer the tale of his fortune at play.
The ancient Hindoo dice, known as coupeen, were similar to modern dice, and were thrown from a box. The practice of “loading” is plainly alluded to, and there was opportunity for skill in handling the box. In the more modern Hindoo games, called pasha, the dice are not cubic but oblong, and they are thrown like printer’s quads in “jeffing”—that is, out of the palm of the hand. The throw may be made either directly upon the ground, or against a post or board, which will break the fall and render the result more a matter of chance.[chance.]