He alluded to the excessive penalty attached to the law, and argued that it would never be enforced, there being no inducement for the police to detect the offenders; and that from the face of the law is shown, that it was not made for the punishment of wealthy gamblers, but the poor itinerant wretches who had no local habitation.  These being birds of passage, he questioned whether they would remain long enough in one place to be caught, while the rich operator and speculator would be permitted to go on unmolested, in his gilded career of depredations upon his fellow man.

Mr. Green then arose and expressed his surprise that any individual could have the effrontery to stand up before an intelligent body of citizens, a part of that constituency, from whom the legislature of the state had derived its authority, and denounce a law which had not only been passed with entire unanimity of the members of that body, but which had met with general favour from the people.  He then referred to the act of Assembly, and made some explanatory remarks upon it.  He ably defended the law from the remarks of his opponent, in regard to its vagueness and insufficiency.  On the whole, he regarded it as a good one.  It could be effectively put in force, and was calculated to crush the evil of gambling.

He said he had no wish to conceal from the people his former habits and mode of getting a livelihood, but on the contrary, had repeatedly, in public, represented himself as being a wary gambler, and acknowledged that he had done, perhaps, as much with cards in a professional way as any man claiming the same amount of information in regard to them.

He then passed to a review of the terrible consequences of gambling, and showed that those who became addicted to it, acquired a passion for play, that predominated over every other feeling, and closed up the springs of affection and sympathy in the human heart.

These facts he forcibly and eloquently illustrated by relating some painful occurrence, which came under his observation.  On one occasion he was playing with a party, one of whom was losing his money very rapidly.  In the height of a game, his family physician entered the room, and saying that it was with much difficulty that he found his whereabouts, informed him that his daughter had been seized with extreme illness.  The gambler replied, that he would return to his home very soon.

The doctor left, but not long after returned with the gambler’s wife, who implored him to come home, as the girl was dying.  He desired the doctor to lead his wife from the room, with the solemn promise to follow them; which promise he seemed to have forgotten the next instant, so deeply was he interested in the play, and he remained at the gaming-table.  In a little while after, the doctor returned and told him his daughter was dead.  For the moment, he appeared to be greatly affected, but he still sat at the faro table of that h——­l, and when he arose from it he was a ruined man.