Messrs. Editors:—­It appears from Mr. Green’s last communication that he and I are at issue in regard to the preliminary arrangements of the debate that is to come off next week, upon the gambling question.  He thinks that he ought to have all the proceeds of the meeting; and I think it should be equally divided, or else given to some charitable institution, or else have it free.  Mr. Green’s argument for supposing that he should have all, is, that because he has been labouring four years, he ought to be rewarded:  and in rather a threatening tone gives the public to understand that if they do not reward him he will quit.  “If I am not,” he says, “supported by the public, which my labours are designed to benefit, those labours must necessarily cease.”  Now, my argument for supposing that the proceeds should be equally divided is, that I claim to be the real reformer; that it will be seen by those who may attend the discussion, that it is I that am the true moralist—­I shall go with the New Testament in one hand, and Dr. Paley’s Moral Philosophy in the other, and upon that battery, and no other, will I plant my artillery.  He that is green enough to suppose that I am green-horn enough to get up before a large audience, in the enlightened city of Philadelphia, to defend an absurdity, must be verdant indeed I go not to defend gamblers, but to defend truth, and to show that Mr. Green, like a corrupt witness, in his eagerness to procure a verdict for his party, goes beyond the facts; and that too when there is no necessity for it, for the gambler has real sins enough without heaping others upon him which he never committed.  Now then, to end all this difficulty at a blow, I make to Mr. Green the proposition—­That the honourable Mayor of the city, if he will do it, be the person to appoint the committee that is to conduct the debate, and to the decision of the committee, as to the funds, will I cordially submit, but not to Mr. Green’s ipse dixit.  And here I will further suggest, that the committee be composed wholly of lawyers.  This will be proper, because it is a question of law that is to be discussed; and further, it is presumed that they understand better than any other class of men what is called parliamentary usage.

Should this proposition not be acceded to, which I know is fair, my course will be to debate the question on “my own hook,” and in that case take all the money and give Mr. Green not a dollar of it, but invite him to come to my quarters, and defend himself, for I shall certainly be down upon him—­and so let him go to his house the next night and take what may be offered at his door, and allow me to answer him in what he may have to say.

When Mr. Green, in his acceptance of my challenge, would call the debate a lecture, I saw that old habits, that of cheating, had not yet left him.  Why it looks as though he has the unblushing impudence to attempt to turn a Jack from the bottom, upon me, in the very blaze of day, the very first deal; but the gentleman ought to know that he is now in contact with one who knows how little things are done.  Yes, he would have it that the debate was a lecture, and Mr. Green’s lecture, not mine, and why?  Why because if it be his lecture, all the cash would, as a matter of course, be his.  Also, is this not, I ask, the trick of a perfect black-leg?