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Volume I Volume II

The Gaming Table by Andrew Steinmetz

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THE UNIVERSAL PASSION OF GAMING OR, GAMING ALL THE WORLD OVER

CHAPTER I. page 13

No nation has exceeded ours in the pursuit of gaming. In former
times--and yet not more than 30 or 40 years ago--the passion for
play was predominant among the highest classes.

Genius and abilities of the highest order became its votaries;
and the very framers of the laws against gambling were the first
to fall under the temptation of their breach! The spirit of
gambling pervaded every inferior order of society. The gentleman
was a slave to its indulgence; the merchant and the mechanic were
the dupes of its imaginary prospects; it engrossed the citizen
and occupied the rustic. Town and country became a prey to its
despotism. There was scarcely an obscure village to be found
wherein this bewitching basilisk did not exercise its powers of
fascination and destruction.

Gaming in England became rather a science than an amusement
of social intercourse. The `doctrine of chances' was studied
with an assiduity that would have done honour to better subjects;
and calculations were made on arithmetical and geometrical
principles, to determine the degrees of probability attendant on
games of mixed skill and chance, or even on the fortuitous throws
of dice. Of course, in spite of all calculations, there were
miserable failures--frightful losses. The polite gamester, like
the savage, did not scruple to hazard the dearest interests of
his family, or to bring his wife and children to poverty, misery,
and ruin. He could not give these over in liquidation of a
gambling debt; indeed, nobody would, probably, have them at a
gift; and yet there were instances in which the honour of a wife
was the stake of the infernal game! . . . . Well might the
Emperor Justinian exclaim,--`Can we call _PLAY_ that which
causes crime?'[14]

[14] Quis enim ludos appellet eos, ex quibus crimina
oriuntur?--_De Concept. Digest_. II. lib. iv. Sec. 9.

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