"As the city has so much dependence on the river for its support, there is a tendency on the part of the inhabitants to crowd near the stream; consequently Panompin stretches about three miles along the bank, and less than half a mile away from it. This is where you find the street I have mentioned; it is not more than thirty feet wide, and paved with a concrete mass of broken brick mixed with sand. You find a straggling line of low huts of bamboo or other light material along the whole length of this street, and in the busy hours of the day the assemblage of people is pretty dense. The Chinese are great gamblers, and a goodly portion of these huts are gambling-shops, whose proprietors pay a license for the privilege of running the business. In several of these Eastern countries the money received from gambling forms an important item in the public revenue; and if it should be stopped, the treasury would suffer in consequence."
"What an outrageous piece of business!" said Frank. "To think that a government would derive any part of its revenue from gambling!"
"But remember we are in Asia," Fred remarked; "and we can't expect these people to be civilized."
The Doctor smiled at this outburst of indignation, and when it was ended he reminded the boys that several governments of Europe did exactly what they thought so reprehensible when done by Asiatics.
"Not governments of any consequence," said Frank.
"Well," answered the Doctor, "I hardly think we could say that. Italy, Spain, and Austria are certainly of some consequence, and in all of them the lottery, which is a form of gambling, is a government institution. It is only a few years ago that the gambling-tables at Baden-Baden, in Germany, were stopped, and there was serious talk, at the time, of allowing the gamblers that were suppressed in Germany to open their business at Geneva, in Switzerland.
"And furthermore," Doctor Bronson continued, "we cannot throw many stones at the Chinese and other Eastern people for gambling when we have so much of it in America. In all our large cities the vice exists in defiance of the law; and in some of the States, particularly in Kentucky and Louisiana, the lottery is a recognized institution, and the drawings are supervised by officers appointed by the governor."
Frank and Fred both declared that this information was new to them, and hereafter they would not be too hasty to condemn other countries, lest they might find that the thing they objected to prevailed in their own.
The description of Panompin was resumed: