It was the enlightened policy of French legislation to tax a vice which could not be suppressed by criminal laws. The experience of civilization has, or ought to have taught every people, that the vice of gaming is one which no law can reach so completely as to suppress in toto. Then, if it will exist, disarm it as much as possible of the power to harm—let it be taxed, and give the exclusive privilege to game to those who pay the tax and keep houses for the purpose of gaming. These will effectually suppress it. Everywhere else they are entitled to the game, and will keep close watch that it runs into no other net. Let this tax be appropriated to the support of an institution where, in disease and indigence, its victims may find support and relief. Make it public, that all may see and know its habitués, and who may feel the reforming influence of public opinion. For, at last, this is the only power by which the morals of a community are preserved. Let laws punish crimes—public opinion reform vices.
Larry was a lawmaker, and though he loved a little fun at times, even at the expense of the law, he was very solicitous as to the health of the public morals. In several visits at Prado's, he was successful in plucking some of the hair from the tiger. It was exceedingly pleasant to have a little pocket-change to evince his liberality socially with his friends, when it did not trench upon the crop, which was always a lean one on the sand-plains of St. Helena; for, like the great Corsican, Larry had a desolate home in St. Helena.
On one occasion, however, he went too close to the varmint, and returned to his little dirty apartments on the Rue Rampart minus all his gains, with a heavy instalment from the crop. His wonted spirits were gone. He moped to the State House, and he sat melancholy in his seat; he heeded not even the call of the yeas and nays upon important legislation. Larry was sick at heart, sick in his pocket, and was only seen to pluck up spirit enough to go to the warrant-clerk, and humbly insist upon a warrant on the treasurer for a week's pay to meet a week's board. On Monday, however, he came into the Senate with more buoyancy of spirit than had been his wont for some days; for Larry was a senator now, and had under his special charge and guardianship the people and their morals of three extensive parishes.
The Senate was scarcely organized and the minutes read, when it was plain Larry meant mischief. The hour for motions had arrived, and Larry was on his feet: he cleared his throat, and, throwing back his head, said: "Mr. President, I have a motion in my hand, which I will read to the Senate:
"'Resolved, That a joint committee, of one from the Senate, and two from the House, be appointed to report a bill abolishing licensed gaming in the city of New Orleans.'"
Larry had declared war, for he added, as he sent his resolution to the clerk's desk: "At the proper time I mean to say something about these damnable hells." Throughout the city there was a buzz; for at that time New Orleans had not the fourth of her present population. Any move of this sort was soon known to its very extremes. The trustees of the hospital, the stockholders in these licensed faro-banks—for they were, like all robbing-machines, joint-stock companies—and many who honestly believed this the best system to prevent gaming as far as possible, were seen hanging about the lobbies of the Legislature. Each had his argument in favor of continuing the license, but all were based upon the same motive—interest. The public morals would be greatly injured, instead of being improved; where there were only four gaming establishments, there would be fifty; instead of being open and public, they would be hid away in private, dark places, to which the young and the innocent would be decoyed and fleeced; merchants could not supervise the conduct of their clerks—these would be robbed by their employes. As the thing stood now, cheating operated a forfeiture of charter or license: this penalty removed, cheating would be universal. "What would become of the hospital?" the tax-payer asked. "God knows, our taxes are onerous enough now, and to add to these the eighty thousand dollars now paid by the gamblers—why, the people would not stand it, and this great and glorious charity would be destroyed."
To all of these arguments Larry was deaf; his constituents expected it of him; the Christian Church demanded it. They were responsible to Heaven for this great sin. The pious prayers of the good sisters of the holy Methodist Church, as well as those of the Baptist, had at last reached the ears of the Almighty, and he, Larry, felt himself the instrument in His hands to put down the d——d infernal sons of b——, who were robbing the innocent and unsuspecting.
There was no use of urging arguments of this sort to him: if the Charity Hospital fell, let her fall, and if the indigent afflicted could not find relief elsewhere, why, they must die—they had to die anyhow at some time, and he didn't see much use in their living, anyhow; and as for the taxes, he was not much concerned about that: he had but little to be taxed, and his constituents had less. "I, or they, as you see, are not very responsible on that score. By the God of Moses, this licensed gambling was a sin and a curse, if it did support seven or eight thousand people in the Charity Hospital every year: that was the reason so many died there, the curse of God was on the place; for the Scripture says, the 'wages of sin is death,' and I see this Scripture fulfilled right here in that hospital, and the moral and religious portion of my constituents so feel it, and I am bound to represent them. And the d——d gamblers were no friends of mine or of the Church."
There was one, a little dark-moustached Spaniard, who was listening and peering at him, with eyes black and pointed as a chincapin, and, murmuring softly in Spanish, turned and went away. "What did that d——d black-muzzled whelp say?" Larry asked. "I don't understand their d——d lingo." An unobtrusive individual in the background translated it for him. He said: "He who strikes with the tongue, should always be ready to guard with the hands!" "What in the h—- does he mean by that?" asked Larry. "Je ne sais pas!" said one whom Larry remembered to have seen in the tiger's den, and apparently familiar there, for he had been on the wrong side of the table.
"I suppose they mean to shoot me." The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders most knowingly. Larry grew pale, and walked from the lobby to his seat. Here he knew he was safe. He laid his head in his palm, and rested it there for many minutes. At last, he said sharply: "Let them shoot, and be d——d."