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Show y. " ' 'k. .1 VOLUME VI. SALT LAKE CITV, UTAH, OCTOBER 15, 1804. TIIK GAMBLING MANIA. AMBLING is the attempt to get something for nothyW ing, and therein lies its immorality. It is the desire to secure something without earning it, to obtain reward without due effort. It teaches that chance and luck may take the place of honest labor, that for which men work may he obtained without work. "Ye shall be judged according to your works," has no significance to a train her, if he holds the lucky number in a lottery or makes the best throw with a dice box. From his standpoint the' eld ethical idea that hard, persistent effort is the corner stone of all success is erroneous, lie sees in the lottery ticket, the faro table, or the stock exchange an opportunity for making a large sum of money bv risking only a few dollars. He follows a seem- ingly natural tendency of mankind to secure the most with the least effort. It is this desire for that moves him to risk his money. Some men, it is true, gamble to drown sorrow, others play at games of chance because of the fascination of the game in and of itself, but the great ma jority of gamblers gamble to make money and for no other self-gai- n piirpusc. Gambling in some form exists everywhere. Country towns have their quilting rallies, city parishes their church fairs, athletic associations their racing events and pool betting. In all our larger cities there are gambling dens, where the faro table, the roulette wheel, the deck of cards ami the dice box are in almost constant use. Racing associations could not exist with their long list of high salaried officers did they not get a large percentum of the profits of the gambling done on their courses dur-in- g the racing seasons. And then it is not necessary to attend the race to bet on the outcome. In New York city alone there are over " where bets may sixty be made on all the racing and athletic contests throughout the world. The amounts bet on races in this one city average over 150,000 per day. At a number of the great race tracks the betting often ex- feeds i50,000 per day. Mr. W. 13. Curtis, in: nagi lg editor of the Spirit of tie Times, is authority for the statement that on one track alone, during a single afternoon, of the summer of 181)1, there was wagered 1,440,000. Add to this the amounts bet in the various pool rooms of oui large cities, and it is safe to estimate that over 2,000,-00- 0 changed hands on the results of that one afternoon. Enormous amounts, sometimes as high as are often wagered on a single race". The" amounts risked on trotting races are even larger, it not being at all uncommon to hear of there being r0,000 in the pool box "pool-rooms- 30,-00- 0, "heat." on one Betting does not stop at horse races and trotting. Lovers of chance bet on everything that involves a hazard. Pools are made on baseball games, footbal contests, bicvele races, yacht races, boxing matches. Fanners bet on the number of days before a rain, on the amount of hay in a certain lield. Tin higher classes bet on so-call- ed NUMBER 2. election returns, on the rise and fall of prices. Ocean travelers fre quently amuse themselves by betting on the rate of speed of the vessel, the time of arrival at port, the number of vessels sighted in a certain period. Nearly everyone gambles in some one of the forms thus far described, and it is when we take into con. sideration the great prevalence of this desire to make money without working for it that gambling becomes in very deed one of our most reprehensible social evils. Of the regular gambling games, faro, roulette, poker, and the number combination arc perhaps the most popular. In these games the. "house" has from six to nine chances out of every ten for winning. In the low grade gambling houses the apparatus is usually "doctored," and in such cases the dealer of course has the game in his own hands. He loses small amounts to "draw on" his prey, but he invariably wins when the stakes are large. But this is cheating and robbery, and not gambling. The s house either puts up a "fair and square game," or conducts its cheating so skillfully as not to be detected. The men who frequent these houses, and to whom the proprietors look for support, are from every walk of life. The passion for gambling penetrates all grades of society. The meagre-salarieclerk sees in the faro table, the roulette wheel, or the dice box a brilliant scheme for making money. I lis "throwing dice" and "mark-ing- " with fellow clerks for the first-clas- mi d |