indecency. There lately
transpired, in Maryland, a lottery in which people drew for lots in
a burying-ground! The modern habit of betting about everything is
productive of immense mischief. The most healthful and innocent
amusements of yachting and base-ball playing have been the occasion of
putting up excited and extravagant wagers. That which to many has
been advantageous to body and mind has been to others the means of
financial and moral loss. The custom is pernicious in the extreme
where scores of men in respectable life give themselves up to betting,
now on this boat now on that--now on the Atlantics and now on the
Athletics.

Betting, that once was chiefly the accompaniment of the race-course,
is fast becoming a national habit, and in some circles any
opinion advanced on finance or politics is accosted with the
interrogatory--"How much will you bet on _that_, sir?"

This custom may make no appeal to slow, lethargic temperaments,
but there are in the country tens of thousands of quick, nervous,
sanguine, excitable temperaments ready to be acted upon, and their
feet will soon take hold on death. For some months and perhaps for
years they will linger in the more polite and elegant circle of
gamesters, but, after a while, their pathway will come to the fatal
plunge. Finding themselves in the rapids, they will try to back out,
and, hurled over the brink, they will clutch the side of the boat
until their finger-nails, blood-tipped, will pierce the wood, and
then, with white cheek and agonized stare, and the horrors of the lost
soul lifting the very hair from the scalp, they will plunge down where
no grappling hooks can drag them out.

Young man! stand back from all styles of gambling! The end thereof
is death. The gamblers enter the ten-pin alley where are husbands,
brothers, and fathers. "Put down your thousand dollars all in gold
eagles! Let the boy set up the pins at the other end of the alley! Now
stand back, and give the gamester full sweep! Roll the first--there!
it strikes! and down goes his respectability. Try it again. Roll the
second--there! it strikes! and down goes the last feeling of humanity.
Try it again. Roll the third--there! it strikes! and down goes his
soul forever. It was not so much the pins that fell as the soul! the
soul! FATAL TEN-STRIKE FOR ETERNITY!"

Shall I sketch the history of the gambler? Lured by bad company, he
finds his way into a place where honest men ought never to go. He
si