In regard to the criminality of the practice, a late writer has the following striking remarks.
'As to gaming, it is always criminal, either in itself or in its tendency. The basis of it is covetousness; a desire to take from others something for which you have neither given, nor intend to give an equivalent. No gambler was ever yet a happy man, and few gamblers have escaped being positively miserable. Remember, too, that to game for nothing is still gaming; and naturally leads to gaming for something. It is sacrificing time, and that, too, for the worst of purposes.
'I have kept house for nearly forty years; I have reared a family; I have entertained as many friends as most people; and I never had cards, dice, a chess board, nor any implement of gaming under my roof. The hours that young men spend in this way, are hours murdered; precious hours that ought to be spent either in reading or in writing; or in rest; preparatory to the duties of the dawn.
'Though I do not agree with those base flatterers who declare the army to be the best school for statesmen, it is certainly a school in which we learn, experimentally, many useful lessons; and in this school I learned that men fond of gaming, are rarely, if ever, trust-worthy. I have known many a decent man rejected in the way of promotion, only because he was addicted to gaming. Men, in that state of life, cannot ruin themselves by gaming, for they possess no fortune, nor money; but the taste for gaming is always regarded as an indication of a radically bad disposition; and I can truly say that I never in my whole life—and it has been a long and eventful one—knew a man fond of gaming, who was not, in some way or other, unworthy of confidence. This vice creeps on by very slow degrees, till, at last, it becomes an ungovernable passion, swallowing up every good and kind feeling of the heart.'
For my own part I know not the names of cards; and could never take interest enough in card-playing to remember them. I have always wondered how sober and intelligent people, who have consciences, and believe the doctrine of accountability to God—how professing Christians even, as is the case in some parts of this country, can sit whole evenings at cards. Why, what notions have they of the value of time? Can they conceive of Him, whose example we are bound to follow, as engaged in this way? The thought should shock us! What a Herculean task Christianity has yet to accomplish!
The excess of this vice has caused even the overthrow of empires. It leads to conspiracies, and creates conspirators. Men overwhelmed with debt, are always ready to obey the orders of any bold chieftain who may attempt a decisive stroke, even against government itself. Catiline had very soon under his command an army of scoundrels. 'Every man,' says Sallust, 'who by his follies or losses at the gaming table had consumed the inheritance of his fathers, and all who were sufferers by such misery, were the friends of this perverse man.'
Perhaps this vice has nowhere been carried to greater excess than in France. There it has its administration, its chief, its stockholders, its officers, and its priests. It has its domestics, its pimps, its spies, its informers, its assassins, its bullies, its aiders, its abettors,—in fact, its scoundrels of every description; particularly its hireling swindlers, who are paid for decoying the unwary into this 'hell upon earth,' so odious to morality, and so destructive to virtue and Christianity.
In England, this vice has at all times been looked upon as one of pernicious consequence to the commonwealth, and has, therefore, long been prohibited. The money lost in this way, is even recoverable again by law. Some of the laws on this subject were enacted as early as the time of Queen Anne, and not a few of the penalties are very severe. Every species of gambling is strictly forbidden in the British army, and occasionally punished with great severity, by order of the commander in chief. These facts show the state of public opinion in that country, in regard to the evil tendency of this practice.
Men of immense wealth have, in some instances, entered gambling houses, and in the short space of an hour have found themselves reduced to absolute beggary. 'Such men often lose not only what their purses or their bankers can supply, but houses, lands, equipage, jewels; in fine, every thing of which they call themselves masters, even to their very clothes; then perhaps a pistol terminates their mortal career.'
Fifteen hours a day are devoted by many infatuated persons in some countries to this unhappy practice. In the middle of the day, while the wife directs with prudence and economy the administration of her husband's house, he abandons himself to become the prey of rapacious midnight and mid-day robbers. The result is, that he contracts debts, is stripped of his property, and his wife and children are sent to the alms-house, whilst he, perhaps, perishes in a prison.