Part 1 (1/2)

Gamblers and Gambling.

by Henry Ward Beecher.

Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts, to every soldier a part, and also his coat. Now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots far it, whose it shall be. These things therefore the soldiers did.

I have condensed into one account the separate parts of this gambling transaction as narrated by each evangelist. How marked in every age is a Gambler's character! The enraged priesthood of ferocious sects taunted Christ's dying agonies; the bewildered mult.i.tude, accustomed to cruelty, could shout; but no earthly creature, but a Gambler, could be so lost to _all_ feeling as to sit down coolly under a dying man to wrangle for his garments, and arbitrate their avaricious differences by casting dice for his tunic, with hands spotted with his spattered blood, warm and yet undried upon them. The descendants of these patriarchs of gambling, however, have taught us that there is nothing possible to h.e.l.l, uncongenial to these, its elect saints. In this lecture it is my disagreeable task to lead your steps down the dark path to their cruel haunts, there to exhibit their infernal pa.s.sions, their awful ruin, and their ghastly memorials. In this house of darkness, amid fierce faces gleaming with the fire of fiercer hearts, amid oaths and groans and fiendish orgies, ending in murders and strewn with sweltering corpses,--do not mistake, and suppose yourself in h.e.l.l,--you are only in its precincts and vestibule.

Gambling is the staking or winning of property upon mere hazard. The husbandman renders produce for his gains; the mechanic renders the product of labor and skill for his gains; the gambler renders for his gain the sleights of useless skill, or more often, downright cheating.

Betting is gambling; there is no honest equivalent to its gains.

Dealings in fancy-stocks are oftentimes sheer gambling, with all its worst evils. Profits so earned are no better than the profits of dice, cards, or hazard. When skill returns for its earnings a useful service, as knowledge, beneficial amus.e.m.e.nts, or profitable labor, it is honest commerce. The skill of a pilot in threading a narrow channel, the skill of a lawyer in threading a still more intricate one, are as substantial equivalents for a price received, as if they were merchant goods or agricultural products. But all gains of _mere_ skill which result in no real benefit, are gambling gains.

Gaming, as it springs from a principle of our nature, has, in some form, probably existed in every age. We trace it in remote periods and among the most barbarous people. It loses none of its fascinations among a civilized people. On the contrary, the habit of fierce stimulants, the jaded appet.i.te of luxury, and the satiety of wealth, seem to invite the master-excitant. Our land, not apt to be behind in good or evil, is full of gambling in all its forms--the gambling of commerce, the gambling of bets and wagers, and the gambling of games of hazard. There is gambling in refined circles, and in the lowest; among the members of our national government, and of our state governments. Thief gambles with thief, in jail; the judge who sent them there, the lawyer who prosecuted, and the lawyer who defended them, often gamble too. This vice, once almost universally prevalent among the Western bar, and still too frequently disgracing its members, is, however, we are happy to believe, decreasing. In many circuits, not long ago, and in some now, the judge, the jury, and the bar, shuffled cards by night, and law by day--dealing out money and justice alike. The clatter of dice and cards disturbs your slumber on the boat, and rings drowsily from the upper rooms of the hotel. This vice pervades the city, extends over every line of travel, and infests the most moral districts. The secreted lamp dimly lights the apprentices to their game; with unsuspected disobedience, boys creep out of their beds to it; it goes on in the store close by the till; it haunts the shop. The scoundrel in his lair, the scholar in his room; the pirate on his s.h.i.+p, gay women at parties; loafers on the street-corner, public functionaries in their offices; the beggar under the hedge, the rascal in prison, and some professors of religion in the somnolent hours of the Sabbath,--waste their energies by the ruinous excitement of the game. Besides these players, there are troops of professional gamblers, troops of hangers-on, troops of youth to be _drawn_ in. An inexperienced eye would detect in our peaceful towns no signs of this vulture-flock;--so in a sunny day, when all cheerful birds are singing merrily, not a buzzard can be seen; but let a carca.s.s drop, and they will push forth their gaunt heads from their gloomy roosts, and come flapping from the dark woods to speck the air, and dot the ground with their numbers.

The universal prevalence of this vice is a reason for parental vigilance; and a reason of remonstrance from the citizen, the parent, the minister of the gospel, the patriot, and the press. I propose to trace its opening, describe its subjects, and detail its effects.

A young man, proud of freedom, anxious to exert his manhood, has tumbled his Bible, and sober books, and letters of counsel, into a dark closet.

He has learned various accomplishments, to flirt, to boast, to swear, to fight, to drink. He has let every one of these chains be put around him, upon the solemn promise of Satan that he would take them off whenever he wished. Hearing of the artistic feats of eminent gamblers, he emulates them. So, he ponders the game. He teaches what he has learned to his shopmates, and feels himself their master. As yet he has never played for stakes. It begins thus: Peeping into a book-store, he watches till the sober customers go out; then slips in, and with a.s.sumed boldness, not concealing his shame, he asks for cards, buys them, and hastens out.

The first game is to pay for the cards. After the relish of playing for a stake, no game can satisfy them _without_ a stake. A few nuts are staked; then a bottle of wine; an oyster-supper. At last they can venture a sixpence in _actual money_--just for the amus.e.m.e.nt of it. I need go no further--whoever wishes to do anything with the lad, can do it now. If properly plied, and gradually led, he will go to any length, and stop only at the gallows. Do you doubt it? let us trace him a year or two further on.

With his father's blessing, and his mother's tears, the young man departs from home. He has received his patrimony, and embarks for life and independence. Upon his journey he rests at a city; visits the ”school of morals;” lingers in more suspicious places; is seen by a sharper; and makes his acquaintance. The knave sits by him at dinner; gives him the news of the place, and a world of advice; cautions him against sharpers; inquires if he has money, and charges him to keep it secret; offers himself to make with him the rounds of the town, and secure him from imposition. At length, that he may see all, he is taken to a gaming-house, but, with apparent kindness, warned not to play. He stands by to see the various fortunes of the game; some, forever losing; some, touch what number they will, gaining piles of gold. Looking in thirst where wine is free. A gla.s.s is taken; another of a better kind; next the best the landlord has, and two gla.s.ses of that. A change comes over the youth; his exhilaration raises his courage, and lulls his caution. Gambling _seen_, seems a different thing from gambling _painted_ by a pious father! Just then his friend remarks that one might easily double his money by a few ventures, but that it was, perhaps, prudent not to risk. Only this was needed to fire his mind. What! only prudence between me and gain? Then that shall not be long! He stakes; he wins. Stakes again; wins again. Glorious! I am the lucky man that is to break the bank! He stakes, and wins again. His pulse races; his face burns; his blood is up, and fear gone. He loses; loses again; loses all his winnings; loses more. But fortune turns again; he wins anew. He has now lost all self-command. Gains excite him, and losses excite him more.

He doubles his stakes; then trebles them--and all is swept. He rushes on, puts up his whole purse, and loses the whole! Then he would borrow; no man will lend. He is desperate, he will fight at a word. He is led to the street, and thrust out. The cool breeze which blows upon his fevered cheek, wafts the slow and solemn stroke of the clock,--one,--two,--three,--four; _four of the morning_! Quick work of ruin!--an innocent man destroyed in a night! He staggers to his hotel, remembers as he enters it, that he has not even enough to pay his bill.

It now flashes upon him that his friend, who never had left him for an hour before, had stayed behind where his money is, and, doubtless, is laughing over his spoils. His blood boils with rage. But at length comes up the remembrance of home; a parent's training and counsels for more than twenty years, destroyed in a night! ”Good G.o.d! what a wretch I have been! I am not fit to live. I cannot go home. I am a stranger here. Oh!

that I were dead! Oh! that I had died before I knew this guilt, and were lying where my sister lies! Oh G.o.d! Oh G.o.d! my head will burst with agony!” He stalks his lonely room with an agony which only the young heart knows in its first horrible awakening to remorse--when it looks despair full in the face, and feels its hideous incantations tempting him to suicide. Subdued at length by agony, cowed and weakened by distress, he is sought again by those who plucked him. Cunning to subvert inexperience, to raise the evil pa.s.sions, and to allay the good, they make him their pliant tool.

Farewell, young man! I see thy steps turned to that haunt again! I see hope lighting thy face; but it is a lurid light, and never came from heaven. Stop before that threshold!--turn, and bid farewell to home!--farewell to innocence!--farewell to venerable father and aged mother!--the next step shall part thee from them all forever. And now henceforth be a mate to thieves, a brother to corruption. Thou hast made a league with death, and unto death shalt thou go.

Let us here pause, to draw the likeness of a few who stand conspicuous in that vulgar crowd of gamblers, with which hereafter he will consort.

The first is a taciturn, quiet man. No one knows when he comes into town, or when he leaves. No man hears of his gaining; for he never boasts, nor reports his luck. He spends little for parade; his money seems to go and come only through the game. He reads none, converses none, is neither a glutton nor a hard drinker; he sports few ornaments, and wears plain clothing. Upon the whole, he seems a gentlemanly man; and sober citizens say, ”his only fault is gambling.” What then is this ”_only fault_?” In his heart he has the most intense and consuming l.u.s.t of play. He is quiet because every pa.s.sion is absorbed in one; and that one burning at the highest flame. He thinks of nothing else, cares only for this. All other things, even the hottest l.u.s.ts of other men, are too cool to be temptations to him; so much deeper is the style of his pa.s.sions. He will sit upon his chair, and no man shall see him move for hours, except to play his cards. He sees none come in, none go out.

Death might groan on one side of the room, and marriage might sport on the other,--he would know neither. Every created influence is shut out; one thing only moves him--the _game_; and that leaves not one pulse of excitability unaroused, but stirs his soul to the very dregs.

Very different is the roistering gamester. He bears a jolly face, a glistening eye something watery through watching and drink. His fingers are manacled in rings; his bosom grows with pearls and diamonds. He learns the time which he wastes from a watch full gorgeously carved, (and not with the most modest scenes,) and slung around his neck by a ponderous golden chain. There is not so splendid a fellow to be seen sweeping through the streets. The landlord makes him welcome--he will bear a full bill. The tailor smiles like May--he will buy half his shop. Other places bid him welcome--he will bear large stealings.

Like the Judge, he makes his circuit, but not for justice; like the Preacher, he has his appointments, but not for instruction. His circuits are the race-courses, the crowded capital, days of general convocation, conventions, and ma.s.s-gatherings. He will flame on the race-track, bet his thousands, and beat the ring at swearing, oaths vernacular, imported, simple, or compound. The drinking-booth smokes when he draws in his welcome suit. Did you see him only by day, flaming in apparel, jovial and free-hearted at the Restaurateur or Hotel, you would think him a Prince let loose--a cross between Prince Hal and Falstaff.

But night is his day. These are mere exercises, and brief prefaces to his real accomplishments. He is a good fellow, who dares play deeper; he is wild indeed, who seems wilder; and he is keen indeed, who is sharper than he is, after all this show of frankness. No one is quicker, slyer, and more alert at a game. He can shuffle the pack till an honest man would as soon think of looking for a particular drop of water in the ocean, as for a particular card in any particular place. Perhaps _he_ is ignorant which is at the top and which at the bottom! At any rate, watch him closely, or you will get a lean hand and he a fat one. A plain man would think him a wizard or the devil. When he touches a pack they seem _alive_, and acting to his _will_ rather than his _touch_. He deals them like lightning, they rain like snow-flakes, sometimes one, sometimes two, if need be four or five together, and his hand hardly moved. If he loses, very well, he laughs; if he gains, he only laughs a little more. Full of stories, full of songs, full of wit, full of roistering spirit--yet do not trespa.s.s too much upon his good nature with insult! All this outside is only the spotted hide which covers the tiger. He who provokes this man, shall see what lightning can break out of a summer-seeming cloud!

These do not fairly represent the race of gamblers,--conveying too favorable an impression. There is one, often met on Steamboats, travelling solely to gamble. He has the servants, or steward, or some partner, in league with him, to fleece every unwary player whom he inveigles to a game. He deals falsely; heats his dupe to madness by drink, drinking none himself; watches the signal of his accomplice telegraphing his opponent's hand; at a stray look, he will slip your money off and steal it. To cover false playing, or to get rid of paying losses, he will lie fiercely, and swear uproariously, and break up the play to fight with knife or pistol--first sc.r.a.ping the table of every penny. When the pa.s.sengers are asleep, he surveys the luggage, to see what may be worth stealing; he pulls a watch from under the pillow of one sleeper; fumbles in the pockets of another; and gathers booty throughout the cabin. Leaving the boat before morning, he appears at some village hotel, a magnificent gentleman, a polished traveller, or even a distinguished n.o.bleman!

There is another gambler, cowardly, sleek, stealthy, humble, mousing, and mean--a simple blood-sucker. For money, he will be a tool to other gamblers; steal for them, and from them; he plays the jackal, and searches victims for them, humbly satisfied to pick the bones afterward.

Thus, (to employ his own language,) he _ropes in_ the inexperienced young, flatters them, teaches them, inflames their pa.s.sions, purveys to their appet.i.tes, cheats them, debauches them, draws them down to his own level, and then lords it over them in malignant meanness. Himself impure, he plunges others into lasciviousness; and with a train of reeking satellites, he revolves a few years in the orbit of the game, the brothel, and the doctor's shop; then sinks and dies: the world is purer, and good men thank G.o.d that he is gone.

Besides these, time would fail me to describe the ineffable dignity of a gambling judge; the cautious, phlegmatic lawyer, gambling from sheer avarice; the broken-down and cast-away politician, seeking in the game the needed excitement, and a fair field for all the base tricks he once played off as a patriot; the pert, sharp, keen, jockey-gambler; the soaked, obese, plethoric, wheezing, baccha.n.a.l; and a crowd of ign.o.ble worthies, wearing all the badges and t.i.tles of vice, throughout its base peerage.

A detail of the evils of gambling should be preceded by an ill.u.s.tration of that const.i.tution of mind out of which they mainly spring--I mean its EXCITABILITY. The body is not stored with a fixed amount of strength, nor the mind with a uniform measure of excitement; but both are capable, by stimulation, of expansion of strength or feeling, almost without limit. Experience shows, that within certain bounds, excitement is healthful and necessary, but beyond this limit, exhausting and destructive. Men are allowed to choose between moderate but long-continued excitement, and intense but short-lived excitement. Too generally they prefer the latter. To gain this intense thrill, a thousand methods are tried. The inebriate obtains it by drink and drugs; the politician, by the keen interest of the civil campaign; the young by amus.e.m.e.nts which violently inflame and gratify their appet.i.tes. When once this higher flavor of stimulus has been tasted, all that is less becomes vapid and disgustful. A sailor tries to live on sh.o.r.e; a few weeks suffice. To be sure, there is no hards.h.i.+p, or cold, or suffering; but neither is there the strong excitement of the ocean, the gale, the storm, and the world of strange sights. The politician perceives that his private affairs are deranged, his family neglected, his character aspersed, his feelings exacerbated. When men hear him confess that his career is a hideous waking dream, the race vexatious, and the end vanity, they wonder that he clings to it; but _he_ knows that nothing but the fiery wine which he has tasted will rouse up that intense excitement, now become necessary to his happiness. For this reason, great men often cling to public office with all its envy, jealousy, care, toil, hates, compet.i.tions, and unrequited fidelity; for these very disgusts, and the perpetual struggle, strike a deeper chord of excitement than is possible to the gentler touches of home, friends.h.i.+p and love. Here too is the key to the real evil of promiscuous novel-reading, to the habit of reverie and mental romancing. None of life's common duties can excite to such wild pleasure as these; and they must be continued, or the mind reacts into the lethargy of fatigue and _ennui_. It is upon this principle that men love _pain_; suffering is painful to a spectator; but in tragedies, at public executions, at pugilistic combats, at c.o.c.k-fightings, horse-races, bear-baitings, bull-fights, gladiatorial shows, it excites a jaded mind as nothing else can. A tyrant torments for the same reason that a girl reads her tear-bedewed romance, or an inebriate drinks his dram. No longer susceptible even to inordinate stimuli, actual moans, and shrieks, and the writhing of utter agony, just suffice to excite his worn-out sense, and inspire, probably, less emotion than ordinary men have in listening to a tragedy or reading a b.l.o.o.d.y novel.

Gambling is founded upon the very worst perversion of this powerful element of our nature. It heats every part of the mind like an oven. The faculties which produce calculation, pride of skill, of superiority, love of gain, hope, fear, jealousy, hatred, are absorbed in the game, and exhilarated, or exacerbated by victory or defeat. These pa.s.sions are, doubtless, excited in men by the daily occurrences of life; but then they are transient, and counteracted by a thousand grades of emotion, which rise and fall like the undulations of the sea. But in gambling there is no intermission, no counteraction. The whole mind is excited to the utmost, and concentrated at its extreme point of excitation for hours and days, with the additional waste of sleepless nights, profuse drinking, and other congenial immoralities. Every other pursuit becomes tasteless; for no ordinary duty has in it a stimulus which can scorch a mind which now refuses to burn without blazing, or to feel an interest which is not intoxication. The victim of excitement is like a mariner who ventures into the edge of a whirlpool for a motion more exhilarating than plain sailing. He is unalarmed during the first few gyrations, for escape is easy. But each turn sweeps him further in; the power augments, the speed becomes terrific as he rushes toward the vortex; all escape now hopeless. A n.o.ble s.h.i.+p went in; it is spit out in broken fragments, splintered spars, crushed masts, and cast up for many a rood along the sh.o.r.e. The specific evils of gambling may now be almost imagined.