But is it unjust to punish the gambler with cards by imprisonment and public proscription, while the gambler in stocks, &c., whose crime is the same in principle, though not in degree, goes unwhipt of justice?  Undoubtedly it is, for it is no reason that one vice should go unpunished, because another is able to escape for the present.  Mr. Freeman’s argument is very good, so far as it applies to inflicting upon the gambler in stocks the same penalty as on himself; but the law of Progress, and the best interests of society, demand that these things should never be allowed to work backwards.  For the way society advances, is simply this—­the worst manifestations of vice are first proscribed, and then their proscription is made a stepping-stone to demolish others.  For instance—­we attack gambling with cards, the worst manifestation of the gambling principle; we make it abhorrent to the moral sense of the world; we so confound it, and justly too, with robbery, that future generations shall grow up in that faith, and all the efforts of interested sophistry never be able henceforward to separate them to the popular apprehension.  Having done this, in the course of some fifty or one hundred years, certain dealings in stocks, for instance, are called in question.  If they can be proved to be rightly described by the phrase “GAMBLING in Stocks,” the battle is half-won.  For the proscription of the worst kind of gambling has given a vantage ground from which to attack the principle of gambling wherever found.  And this, we say, is the only law of progress.

Another ground taken by Mr. Freeman was, that “a man has a right to do what he chooses with his own, if in so doing he does not injure anybody else.”  In a limited sense, this is true, doubtless—­but he does injure somebody else if he fails to perform his duties to his family or to his country.  For instance, he has no right to commit suicide.  But gambling cannot be done without injuring somebody else, as it takes two to play at it—­leaving out of view the injury done to society at large, as Mr. Green has shown in his various works on the subject.  But there is no necessity in dwelling upon this point—­it cannot be defended for a moment.

As to Mr. Green’s part in the discussion, it is not necessary to say much.  He has our confidence and sympathy.  We consider his present course a most noble one, and wish him all success in his efforts to overthrow the abominable vice from whose clutches he has come forth a reformed man.

We have taken up considerable room with this subject, because we feel great interest in both parties engaged in the discussion.  Did Mr. Freeman appear to be only a bold, bad man, we should hardly have wasted a single paragraph upon him or his arguments.  But he is evidently a man of considerable information and talent, and to all appearance, strange as it may sound, of much sincerity and cross-grained honesty.  That he may be led to forsake his present pursuits, before his gray hairs shall have gone down to a dishonoured grave, is our fervent wish and prayer.