This crime is getting its pry under many a mercantile house in our cities, and before long down will come the great establishment, crushing reputation, home, comfort, and immortal souls.  How it diverts and sinks capital may be inferred from some authentic statements before us.  The ten gaming-houses that once were authorized in Paris passed through the banks, yearly, three hundred and twenty-five millions of francs!  The houses of this kind in Germany yield vast sums to the government.  The Hamburg establishment pays to the government treasury forty thousand florins; and Baden Baden one hundred and twenty thousand florins.  Each one of the banks in the large gaming-houses of Germany has forty or fifty croupiers standing in its service.

Where does all the money come from? The whole world is robbed! What is most sad, there are no consolations for the loss and suffering entailed by gaming.  If men fail in lawful business, God pities, and society commiserates; but where in the Bible, or in society, is there any consolation for the gambler?  From what tree of the forest oozes there a balm that can soothe the gamester’s heart?  In that bottle where God keeps the tears of his children, are there any tears of the gambler?  Do the winds that come to kiss the faded cheek of sickness, and to cool the heated brow of the laborer, whisper hope and cheer to the emaciated victim of the game of hazard?  When an honest man is in trouble, he has sympathy.  “Poor fellow!” they say.  But do gamblers come to weep at the agonies of the gambler?  In Northumberland was one of the finest estates in England.  Mr. Porter owned it, and in a year gambled it all away.  Having lost the last acre of the estate, he came down from the saloon and got into his carriage; went back; put up his horses, and carriage, and town house, and played.  He threw and lost.  He started home, and on a side alley met a friend from whom he borrowed ten guineas; went back to the saloon, and before a great while had won twenty thousand pounds.  He died at last a beggar in St. Giles.  How many gamblers felt sorry for Mr. Porter?  Who consoled him on the loss of his estate?  What gambler subscribed to put a stone over the poor man’s grave?  Not one!

Furthermore, this sin is the source of uncounted dishonesties.  The game of hazard itself is often a cheat.  How many tricks and deceptions in the dealing of the cards!  The opponent’s hand is ofttimes found out by fraud.  Cards are marked so that they may be designated from the back.  Expert gamesters have their accomplices, and one wink may decide the game.  The dice have been found loaded with platina, so that “doublets” come up every time.  These dice are introduced by the gamblers unobserved by the honest men who have come into the play; and this accounts for the fact that ninety-nine out of a hundred who gamble, however wealthy they began, at the end are found to be poor, miserable, ragged wretches, that would not now be allowed to sit on the door-step of the house that they once owned.