CHAPTER III.
On Amusements and Indulgences.
Section I. On Gaming.
Even Voltaire asserts that 'every gambler is, has been, or will be a robber.' Few practices are more ancient, few more general, and few, if any, more pernicious than gaming. An English writer has ingeniously suggested that the Devil himself might have been the first player, and that he contrived the plan of introducing games among men, to afford them temporary amusement, and divert their attention from themselves. 'What numberless disciples,' he adds, 'of his sable majesty, might we not count in our own metropolis!'
Whether his satanic majesty has any very direct agency in this matter or not, one thing is certain;—gaming is opposed to the happiness of mankind, and ought, in every civilized country, to be suppressed by public opinion. By gaming, however, I here refer to those cases only in which property is at stake, to be won or lost. The subject of diversions will be considered in another place.
Gaming is an evil, because, in the first place, it is a practice which produces nothing. He who makes two blades of grass grow where but one grew before, has usually been admitted to be a public benefactor; for he is a producer. So is he who combines or arranges these productions in a useful manner,—I mean the mechanic, manufacturer, &c. He is equally a public benefactor, too, who produces mental or moral wealth, as well as physical. In gaming, it is true, property is shifted from one individual to another, and here and there one probably gains more than he loses; but nothing is actually made, or produced. If the whole human family were all skilful gamesters, and should play constantly for a year, there would not be a dollar more in the world at the end of the year, than there was at its commencement. On the contrary, is it not obvious that there would be much less, besides even an immense loss of time?[9] ]
But, secondly, gaming favors corruption of manners. It is difficult to trace the progress of the gamester's mind, from the time he commences his downward course, but we know too well the goal at which he is destined to arrive. There may be exceptions, but not many; generally speaking, every gamester, sooner or later travels the road to perdition, and often adds to his own wo, by dragging others along with him.
Thirdly, it discourages industry. He who is accustomed to receive large sums at once, which bear no sort of proportion to the labor by which they are obtained, will gradually come to regard the moderate but constant and certain rewards of industrious exertion as insipid. He is also in danger of falling into the habit of paying an undue regard to hazard or chance, and of becoming devoted to the doctrine of fatality.
As to the few who are skilful enough to gain more, on the whole, than they lose, scarcely one of them pays any regard to prudence or economy in his expenditures. What is thus lightly acquired, is lightly disposed of. Or if, in one instance in a thousand, it happens otherwise, the result is still unfavorable. It is but to make the miser still more a miser, and the covetous only the more so. Man is so constituted as to be unable to bear, with safety, a rapid accumulation of property. To the truth of this, all history attests, whether ancient or modern, sacred or profane.
The famous philosopher Locke, in his 'Thoughts on Education,' thus observes: 'It is certain, gaming leaves no satisfaction behind it to those who reflect when it is over; and it no way profits either body or mind. As to their estates, if it strike so deep as to concern them, it is a trade then, and not a recreation, wherein few thrive; and at best a thriving gamester has but a poor trade of it, who fills his pockets at the price of his reputation.'