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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 2

Such is the _ALLEGORY_;[2] and it may serve well enough to
represent the thing in accordance with the usages of civilized or
modern life; but Gaming is a _UNIVERSAL_ thing--the
characteristic of the human biped all the world over.

[2] It appeared originally, I think, in the Harleian
Miscellany. I have taken the liberty to re-touch it here and
there, with the view to improvement.

The determination of events by `lot' was a practice frequently
resorted to by the Israelites; as, by lot it was determined which
of the goats should be offered by Aaron; by lot the land of
Canaan was divided; by lot Saul was marked out for the Hebrew
kingdom; by lot Jonah was discovered to be the cause of the
storm. It was considered an appeal to Heaven to determine the
points, and was thought not to depend on blind chance, or that
imaginary being called Fortune, who,

`----With malicious joy,
Promotes, degrades, delights in strife,
And makes a _LOTTERY_ of life.'

The Hindoo Code--a promulgation of very high antiquity--
denounces gambling, which proves that there were desperate
gamesters among the Hindoos in the earliest times. Men gamed,
too, it would appear, after the example set them by the gods, who
had gamesters among them. The priests of Egypt assured Herodotus
that one of their kings visited alive the lower regions called
infernal, and that he there joined a gaming party, at which he
both lost and won.[3] Plutarch tells a pretty Egyptian story to
the effect, that Mercury having fallen in love with Rhea, or the
Earth, and wishing to do her a favour, gambled with the Moon, and
won from her every seventieth part of the time she illumined the
horizon--all which parts he united together, making up _FIVE
DAYS_, and added them to the Earth's year, which had previously
consisted of only 360 days.[4]

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