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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 5

Although there may not be much Gothic blood among us, it is quite
certain that there is plenty of German mixture in our nation--
taking the term in its very wide and comprehensive ethnology.
Now, Tacitus describes the ancient stout and valiant Germans as
`making gaming with a die a very serious occupation of their
sober hours.' Like the `everlasting Negro,' they, too, made
their last throw for personal liberty, the loser going into
voluntary slavery, and the winner selling such slaves as soon as
possible to strangers, in order not to have to blush for such a
victory! If the `nigger' could blush, he might certainly do so
for the white man in such a conjuncture.

At Naples and other places in Italy, at least in former times,
the boatmen used thus to stake their liberty for a certain number
of years. According to Hyde,[9] the Indians stake their fingers
and cut them off themselves to pay the debt of honour.
Englishmen have cut off their ears, both as a `security' for
a gambling loan, and as a stake; others have staked their lives
by hanging, in like manner! Instances will be given in the
sequel.

[9] De Ludis Orient.

But leaving these savages and the semi-savages of the very olden
time, let us turn to those nearer to our times, with just as much
religious truth and principle among them as among ourselves.

The warmth with which `dice-playing' is condemned in the writings
of the _Fathers_, the venerable expounders of Christianity, as
well as by `edicts' and `canons' of the Church, is unquestionably
a sufficient proof of its general and excessive prevalence
throughout the nations of Europe. When cards were introduced, in
the fourteenth century, they only added fuel to the infernal
flame of gambling; and it soon became as necessary to restrain
their use as it had been that of dice. The two held a joint
empire of ruin and desolation over their devoted victims. A king
of France set the ruinous example--Henry IV., the roue, the
libertine, the duellist, the gambler,--and yet (historically) the
_Bon Henri_, the `good king,' who wished to order things so that
every Frenchman might have a _pot-au-feu_, or dish of flesh
savoury, every Sunday for dinner. The money that Henry IV. lost
at play would have covered great public expenses.

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