h intellectual, or moral capacity is
brought into exercise by a game so trivial? It excludes interesting
and instructive interchanges of sentiment; on topics of any degree
of importance; and substitutes talk of a frivolous and meaningless
character. To a spectator, the conversation of a card-table, is of
the most uninteresting and childish description.

There are, however, more serious objections than these. Card-playing
has a tendency of the most dangerous description, especially to the
youthful. Let a young man become expert in this game, and fond of
engaging in it, and who does not see he is liable to become that
most mean and despicable of all living creatures--a GAMBLER.
Confident of his own skill as a card-player, how long would he
hesitate to engage in a game for a small sum? He has seen older ones
playing--perhaps his own parents--and he can discover no great harm
in doing the same thing even if it is for a stake of a few
shillings. From playing for small sums, the steps are very easy
which lead to large amounts. And in due time, the young man becomes
a gambler, from no other cause than that he acquired a love for
card-playing, when he engaged in it only as an amusement.

Parents have a responsibility resting on them in this respect, of
which they should not lose sight. They cannot be surprised that
their children imitate their examples. With all the dangerous
associations and tendencies of card-playing, would they have their
children acquire a passion for it? What wise parent can make such a
choice for his son? Ah, how many a young man has become a gamester,
a black-leg, an inmate of the prison cell, because, in the home of
his childhood, he acquired a love of the card-table. He but imitated
the practice of parents, whose duty it was to set him a better
example, and _was led to the path of ruin_!

If, from its influences, card-playing, even for amusement, is
improper for gentlemen, I conceive it much more so for ladies. A
woman--and more especially a young woman--seems entirely out of
place at a card-table. The associations are so masculine--they bring
to mind so much of the cut-and-shuffle trickery, vulgarity and
profanity--so many of the words and phrases of that _hell_, the
gaming-table--that for a lady to indulge in them, appears entirely
opposed to that modesty and refinement, which are so becoming the
female character. I trust all young ladies of discretion will shun
the card-table. I am confident eve