ployed in the game in idleness, or
intoxication, or sleep, or in corrupting new victims. This sin has
dulled the carpenter's saw, and cut the band of the factory wheel,
sunk the cargo, broken the teeth of the farmer's harrow, and sent a
strange lightning to shatter the battery of the philosopher.

The very first idea in gaming is at war with all the industries of
society. Any trade or occupation that is of use is ennobling. The
street sweeper advances the interests of society by the cleanliness
effected. The cat pays for the fragments it eats by clearing the house
of vermin. The fly that takes the sweetness from the dregs of the cup
compensates by purifying the air and keeping back the pestilence. But
the gambler gives not anything for that which he takes.

I recall that sentence. He _does_ make a return; but it is disgrace to
the man that he fleeces, despair to his heart, ruin to his business,
anguish to his wife, shame to his children, and eternal wasting away
to his soul. He pays in tears and blood, and agony, and darkness, and
woe.

What dull work is ploughing to the farmer, when in the village saloon,
in one night, he makes and loses the value of a summer harvest? Who
will want to sell tape, and measure nankeen, and cut garments, and
weigh sugars, when in a night's game he makes and loses, and makes
again, and loses again, the profits of a season?

John Borack was sent as mercantile agent from Bremen to England and
this country. After two years his employers mistrusted that all was
not right. He was a defaulter for eighty-seven thousand dollars. It
was found that he had lost in Lombard street, London, twenty-nine
thousand dollars; in Fulton street, New York, ten thousand dollars;
and in New Orleans, three thousand dollars. He was imprisoned, but
afterwards escaped and went into the gambling profession. He died in a
lunatic asylum.

This crime is getting its pry under many a mercantile house in our
cities, and before long down will come the great establishment,
crushing reputation, home, comfort, and immortal souls. How it diverts
and sinks capital may be inferred from some authentic statements
before us. The ten gaming-houses that once were authorized in Paris
passed through the banks, yearly, three hundred and twenty-five
millions of francs! The houses of this kind in Germany yield vast sums
to the government. The Hamburg establishment pays to the government
treasury forty thousand florins; and Baden Baden o