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AN  ADDRESS

VICE   OF   GAMBLING;
Delivered lo the Medio*] Pupib of Tramylvania Uuivertily, November 4,1884.
S
BY CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D.   111?- [&•&"
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       LEXINGTON, KY:
fRTBJTBD BY J CLARKE % CO., UPFER-STRBBT.
1834. 
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                                 Lexington Medical Hall, )
                                     November 7th, 1834.   $
  Dear Sir :
        In pursuance of a unanimous resolution, adopted at a meeting
held in the Medical Hall, November 6th, we, a Committee for the pur-
pose, respectfully present to you the thanks of the officers and members
of Transylvania University, for your very eloquent Address on the sub-
ject of Gambling, and request of you a copy for publication.
  In tendering to you the  public thanks, and request of the meeting,
allow us to subjoin our individual sentiments of respect and esteem.
                 Respectfully,
                                      D. F. BLACKBURN,
                                      W. A. WARE,
  Professor Caldwell.                  A. M. KELLER.
  Gentlemen:
         Thanking you for the courtesy of your manner, in conveying
to me the sentiments of the body you represent, let me ask the favour
of you to express to the members of it my sense of the honor they have
done me,  as  respects  my Address on the VICE OF  GAMBLING,
and inform them that a copy of it for publication is at their disposal.
                 Respectfully,
                                         CH:  CALDWELL.
  Messrs Blackburn,
  Ware, and
  Keller.
November 7th, 1834. 
ADDRESS.
   Gentlemen:
         Physicians, in common with several other classes of
 men, stand related to  the  world in a twofold  capacity; as
 members of society, and members of a profession; each hav-
 ing claims on them for duties and  services corresponding to
 its nature.   Jn the latter relation chiefly do I  purpose to ad-
 dress you.   The subject, on which I would fix your attention,
 earnestly soliciting your serious con sideration  of it, has no
 more immediate  connexion  with  medicine, than with  other
 professional callings, or with  the common  pursuits of the
 mechanic,  or the  agriculturist.    Unfortunately, however,
 it has so close a connexion with  every calling, that, to  the
 degradation and ruin of many who are engaged in them, it is,
 too often, allowed to mingle with them  all.  To yourselves,
 moreover,  in your present  situation, it is  peculiarly impor-
 tant.  So  true is this, that  a few incautious steps, in  relation
 to it,  might shed on  your   characters a blight that would be
 incurable, frustrate your own hopes and anticipations, and
 those of your families and  friends  in respect  to you, and wi-
 ther,  in its spring-time, the promise of your lives.
   To account to you for the solemn and portentous tone of
 this introduction, and convince  you that the language  and
 manner employed in it are  fully justified  by the  subject, and
 the moral considerations that have called them forth, I need
 only say, that I purpose to submit to you, a few thoughts on
 the Vice of Gambling.  And, in this early part of my dis-
 course, where moderation in a speaker is most customary, be-
 cause most required, I fearlessly assert, that a vice more ne-
farious in principle, more foul in its associations, more demor-
 alizing in influence, or more destructive in its consequences,
has scarcely an existence.  Were I to declare, in unqualified 
(4 )
terms, that a vice more atrocious, in  these respects,  has not
an existence, evidence  incontestible might  be adduced  to
sustain me.  For darkness of design,  and  depth of turpi-
tude, Intemperance, compared to it, is purity and innocence.
Yet have we hundreds of societies formed, and thousands of
placards and pamphlets circulated, for the  suppression and
prevention of that failing; and  not one to free us from the.
curse or gambling—a practice identical with knavery in its
hatefullest form, allied, in its origin  and  character,  as  will
presently appear, to theft,pocket-picking, and robbery, and not
unfrequently the source of murder—a practice, which is, in
fact, a revolting incorporation of almost every  description of
vice and profligacy,  I hazard nothing, in adding, that a har-
dened  thorough-bred gambler presents  a more  hideous spec-
tacle of complicated viciousness, than  any  other character
that infests society.  Other malefactors may surpass  him, in
individual  forms of atrocity; but he is an aggregate of  the
greatest number.
   Is any one who hears me inclined to allege, that  my lan-
guage  is too unqualified, my representation too indiscriminat-
ing, and my condemnation intemperate?   I reply, that they
are not; and, without intending to boast or banter,  I stand pre-
pared  to maintain my assertion, in its  full extent, against all
opposition that may be offered to it, without either exception,
qualification,  or abatement.   Public gambling-houses amply
 sustain me in  all I have said; and private ones, whether un-
 der the denomination of hotels,  parlours, chambers, or coflfee-
 rooms, are but miniature likenesses  of them; similar in prin-
 ciple,  but more limited in extent; the cradles and nurseries
 of the same vice.  The boy begins his gaming  career  at a
 family card-table, the  youth continues it at academies  and
 colleges,  and the man ends it in the Pandemonium of Black-
 legs.  Would to Heaven I that lamentable experience did
 not too often testify to the truth of this picture!  And let me
 here  emphatically subjoin, that, while family and other forms
  of private gambling are countenanced and practised, public
  gambling can never be exterminated.   While  the seed in 
( 5 )
sown, the plant will spring up,  the  blossom open,  and the
fruit be  matured.   No  youth ever  makes  his debut, and
throws his first card, in a public gaming-house. No; he learns
the game, in an humbler way, at some family table, most
frequently that of his father; and, having acquired confidence
in his skill, and a taste for play, he  pursues it in a higher,
and yet higher style, until the fatal issue just referred to oc-
curs.
   Cut from a tree the  top and the branches, its roots  being
untouched, and the former will be reproduced.  Destroy its
roots, no other  portion being directly injured, and  the whole
perishes.   So of gambling.  Its  root is the private family
card-table;  its top and branches, public tables of  cards and
other games.   Suppress  the latter, the former continuing, and
they will reappear.  Eradicate the former,  and render  its
extinction permanent, and, like the trunk and branches of a
deracinated tree, the evil will be destroyed.
   I shall close these introductory remarks, by observing, that,
should I fail to make good, in detail, what I have thus premis-
ed, in general terms, the fault will be in myself; not in the mat-
ter and means  at my  disposal.  They  are ample.  On my
own head, therefore,  let the penalty fall.  If, on the con-
trary, I succeed in  my effort,  I trust  that no ingenuous and
honorable youth, who favours me with his attention, and is
ambitious of usefulness and a spotless name,  will ever resort
to public haunts, or mingle in private circles, where gaming
is practised.  I flatter myself he will be prevailed on  to re-
gard such places and associations in  their true character,  as
vicious in their principles, and dangerous in their tendencies
to his  reputation and interests, as well as to the community,
in which he resides.
   Treading, as I  am  about to do, on critical groand, I am
anxious to be distinctly understood, in all I may say.  Before
proceeding, therefore, to the discussion of my subject, I shall
offer to you a few explanatory remarks, which I wish  to be
remembered.   Whatever  may be the real or supposed  ap-
pearance to the contrary,  my desire and resolution are to a- 
(6)
void personality.   All my observations will be general, with-
out the slightest allusion to individual characters.  As no of-
fence, therefore, is intended, none, I trust, will be taken.  I
shall not, however, from any dread of offending, disguise my
abhorrence of the vice I am considering,refrain from mingling,
in the picture I may draw of it, any strength of just and re-
quisite colouring  under my control, nor  mitigate, in the
slightest degree, the profound reprobation, in which I hold
it.  To this let me add,  that I shall only so far advert to the
impiety of gambling, as  merely to observe, that  whatever is
immoral is, of course, irreligious.  Its further condemnation,
on that score, belongs to  others.  Leaving  to  the  clergy,
therefore, to proclaim the penalty  that awaits it, in another
world, I shall speak of its  nefariousness, and  some of its con-
sequences,  only in tliis-—of  the flagrancy of its  outrage on
morals  and manners, the  irreparable misery it inflicts on
individuals and families, and the deep and manifold mischiefs
it produces in society on a broader scale.
  One topic more, and my preliminaries are closed.   Of the
terms gambling and gambler different interpretations have
been given, to suit the fancies, and gratify the feelings of dif-
ferent  individuals.   To prevent all  misapprehension of my
meaning  on this point,  it is sufficient to  observe,  that, by
gambling, I understand the practice of any game of hazard,
on which things of value are slaked—in more definite language,
in which a design  is entertained, and an  attempt made, by
one person, to deprive another of his property or possessions,
against his consent, and without the return of an equivalent;
and, by a gambler, I mean, the individual  who practices the
game.   Nor, in this definition of the crime and the criminal,
do I make any exception, on account of the smallness of the
stake.   Though the amount  of individual  injury may be di-
minished by meager betting, the principle is not changed.  A
vice is not the  lesa a departure from  virtue, because  it is
small.   Excuse or justify it, and the issue will be, an abun-
dant growth of larger vices.  To play fraudulently, is but the
worst kind of gambling; and he that does so, is a Black-leg. 
(7)
He doubles his crime, by adding one form of fraud to another,
and coupling meanness with villainy;  for it will be made ap-
pear  presently,  that all gambling is essentially fraudulent.
The very definition of the term  testifies to this; and every
concomitant of the practice strengthens the proof.
   Gambling is not only wicked; it is also, as already  intima-
ted, low and disreputable, as well in  its origin,  as in its ai-
Eociations.   It is the concomitant of a want  of useful  and
agreeable employment, and is  often  resorted  to, by  persons
of mental  shallowness  and vacancy, to  occupy  the time,
which would be  otherwise consumed in dreamy idleness, or
some grosser form of animal indulgence.  It is a native pro-
duct of the human mind, rendered vicious by an ill-directed
or a defective education, which has left certain  animal  pro-
pensities unsubdued, and neglected to strengthen the higher
faculties, especially  the moral and reflective  ones.  Or  the
rebellious propensities  may have been maddened and invig-
orated by profligate associates.   By persons, whose faculties
are moulded into a  proper balance, by a thorough  and sound
education, gambling is  never  indulged in.  In other words,
it  is practised only  by  the  uneducated, or the badly educated;
while those who are so trained, that their higher and nobler
powers of mind  predominate over their lower  and compara-
tively  ignoble—their  moral and intellectual over  their ani-
mal—never descend to it, but shun it, as a pursuit  congenial
only to the degraded and the vulgar; I should rather say, as
a vice, which steeps the soul in the dregs of corruption and
panders to its worst habits of turpitude  and profligacy, dries
up the fountain of the domestic affections, impels its votaries
to beggar wives, children, and friends,  cancels every senti-
ment of  duty and virtue, whets and barbs afresh the fangs,
and adds fiercer venom to the sting of the worm of offended
conscience, and  often leads to desperation and  suicide.  This
is  neither fiction nor extravagance, but  a plain recital of're-
corded facts.
   Had the practice no evil tendency, it  ought, nevertheless,
to be a consideration mortifying to families of standing  and 
                          (8)
fashion, not  to be able to entertain  a party of friends,  in
some more tasteful  and intellectual  way, than  by the me-
chanical and often frivolous amusement of a card tabje. Such
an inability bespeaks, in all who are  concerned in the mat-
ter, a miserable want of mental resources.   From  enlight-
ened and  refined private society, as well in  this as  in other
countries, games of hazard are now excluded,  as  tasteless
and vulgar.  They are driven into exile among barbarians
and savages, or consigned to the dram-shop, the tavern, and
the gambling-house, in common with profane and indelicate
language, deep  drinking, and other remnants of brutal times,
for which alone they are fit associates.  In the advancement
of our race, from semi-barbarism, to the state it has  attained
in the most intellectual and polished circles, such games have
become as offensive  to refinement and good taste, as they have
always been to morality and religion.   And  their places are
supplied by the more pure and elevated amusements of music,
dancing, the inspection  of paintings,  engravings, and other
productions of the fine arts, and by rational conversation.   I
need scarcely add, that the latter is far superior to  all other
modes of entertainment, mingling  as it does  the useful with
the pleasing, and should be studied,  as an accomplishment,
by every  member  of  cultivated society.  Yet how  small is
the number  of  our  well-trained colloquists, compared to that
of our dextrous gamesters!
   On the  origin and history  of gambling, though important
to my purpose, I shall touch but  lightly, sundry considera-
tions  forbidding me to  do more.   It is a vice of great anti-
quity and extent, having been practised from time immemo-
rial, and, more or less, by every people.  It  is worthy of re-
mark, however, that it prevails now, and has always prevail-
ed most extensively and desperately, in savage and barbar-
ous nations, especially during the periods of exemption from
their customary labours, and, as already intimated, among
the most uneducated, the worst educated, and the idlest, portion
of nations called civilized.  I say, " called civilized;" for, as
 far as a people tolerate and countenance gambling,  they for- 
                          (9)
feit their claim to civilization, and sink in the scale of real
humanity.  Wherever practised, then, or by  whomsoever
practised, whether in  palaces or hovels, by kings or princes,
nobles or commoners,  the vice has arelick of barbarism in it.
In proof of these views, all thorough-bred gamblers have in
them a taint of the ruffian  and the desperado; and the most
reckless gambling, of which we have any knowledge,  is per-
petrated by the Tartars,  Malays, roving Arabs, and other
hordes and communities similarly brutalized.  Among those
sons of licentiousness and crime, it is quite common  for the
gambler, having lost every thing else, to stake on the hazard
his wife and children, and ultimately himself; and, from hav-
ing been the natural  slave of his own propensities,  to  be-
come the conventional one of a successful antagonist.  This
is especially true of the Malays, a people noted for the fier-
cest passions, and the worst of vices.   Nor  are hundreds of
our civilized gamblers any better.  Though the laws, which,
in other  respects, they so  flagrantly violate,  prohibit them
from transferring to their associates  their own freedom, or
that of their families, they bring down on both a degree of
ruin scarcely inferior; and, if permitted to do so, they would
consummate their work,  by enslaving  themselves and fami-
lies, like other barbarians, who are much less criminal in their
atrocities, because less enlightened.  I have witnessed, at a
gaming table,  a burst of desperation and madness  (for  I shall
presently show that it is madness) which, if not restrained
by law, would  have led,  I  feel persuaded, to the impawning
of wife, children, and self.   This is neither  a trope, a figure,
nor an exaggerated expression intended for effect;  it is sober
truth.
   Even those  who  most  loudly declaim  against  gambling,
and assail it with the bitterest invectives, do not always fix
their condemnation of it on what constitutes its real vicious-
ness and crime.  They do  not, I mean, charge the criminali-
ty of the practice to  the proper account.   The criminality
does not consist in the nature of the game, the loss of time
incurred at it, the habits formed, or  the effects produced by
                          B 
                         ( 10)
it.  Most of these, though serious evils, can hardly be call-
ed criminal.   The actual crime  of  a game  of  hazard con-
sists in the fraudulent intention, with  which it is played—the
sordid  and lawless design of one person to deprive another
of his means of subsistence, contrary to his wishes, without
giving  him an equivalent for them.  Such design  forms the
vital spirit of theft, pocket-picking,  and robbery,  as well  as
of all sorts of knavery and imposture; and, that it also con-
stitutes the spirit of gambling,  no one will  deny.   Remove
it, and each of the practices will be innocent.  With it, they
are all criminal—in their  nature equally so; the  difference
between  them consisting in  degree.   Man has  a  natural
right to the product of his labours, whether bodily or mental,
or both, and may  dispose of it as he pleases,  provided he
does not interfere with the rights and interests of others. To
deprive him of it, therefore, without his consent,  is  to vio-
late a natural law, in common with  all conventional laws
framed for the protection and security of property, and is
acknowledged felony.   But thus to  deprive others of their
property  and rights, is the gambler's  trade.  And in that
consists his guilt.
   Attempts are made, on various grounds, to palliate, if not
to justify the vice of gambling.  There is no great harm, it
is alleged, in playing a few social games,  at  cards, to pass
away the time, at the hazard of six and a quarter, or  twelve
and a half cents a game.  Or, should the wager rise to twen-
ty-five cents, the mischief of the evening, among friends and
neighbours, who can afford to lose, is not great.   If not per-
fectly  innocent and allowable, the play is, at least, a grati-
fying amusement to those concerned in it; and,  to make the
worst  of  it,  it injures nobody but  themselves.   An indul-
gence  in it, therefore, in  their own houses,  is their indisputa-
ble right.  Such is the defence of cheap gambling, set up  by
those, who are themselves addicted to it—and there  it ends;  no
others adopting it.   How can they?   It is not only weak and
 futile; it is  no defence  at all, but a mere apology, which is
 virtually a confession, that the thing  apologized for is  wrong. 
                          (11)
 Where nothing is done amiss, an apology is not only unne-
 cessary, but out  of place.  In the present  case, moreover,
 every thing is amiss.  It is not true, that  the mischief of
 family gambling is confined to the players.   The example is
 infectious  and demoralizing,  and renders the vice a spread-
 ing evil.   Hence the lookers-on, whether children or adults,
 are soon identified with the perpetrators  of  it.   Belting  is,
 in its spirit, an intended  violation of the principle of right,
 and is, therefore, clearly forbidden by the law of conscience.
 Hence it is criminal.  But a petty crime is not the less truly
 a crime, because it is petty.  And it is the usual harbinger of
 something   worse.   The brightness  of noon-day does not
 burst on us, nor the darkness of midnight fall on us, suddenly.
 The former has its dawn, and the.latter its twilight.   So has
 vice.  No  one attains the zenith of it  at a  bound.   His as-
 cent to it is  gradual.  Hogarth's murderer  commences his
 coirse of cruelty and  crime,  by impaling insects  and run-
 ning pins and bodkins into the flesh of his brothers, and sis-
 ters, advances in it by cutting  off the  ears and tails of cats
 and dogs, matures it by maiming and assassinating men, and
 ends it on a gibbet.  In like manner, he who begins by play-
 ing for small sums, is easily seduced into a gradual increase
 of his hazard, until he acquires a passion for  gambling, plays
 for thousands, and encounters ruin.   "Lead us not into temp-
 tation" is worth all the other petitions  that language can ex-
 press, or imagination conceive.   It is an epitome of wisdom
 indicating  the best  protection of innocence  and  preventive
 of guilt.    But he who plays for any wager,  however small,
 runs counter to that  petition, courts temptation  instead  of
 avoiding it, and incurs the risk of becoming  a victim  to its
 seductions.   In fine; the man who dallies  with  crime, be-
 cause it  is  small, is  wanting  in  the  moral or the reflective
 faculties, or in both, perils his own reputation and interests,
 and presents an example  pernicious to society.
  Another  defence of gambling is that of  high example. Jt
is contended that the practice is  followed by many  richly
gifted individuals, who have, notwithstanding, attained great 
                         (  J2 )
distinction, and  conferred important benefits on their race.
This is  true; and the  fact is deplorable.   That such men
should enrol themselves, by night, in the lists of vice and in-
famy, in defiance of their own declarations and actions, by
day, but exhibits in bolder relief the  danger of gambling,
and  condemns  the practice of it in stronger  terms.  The
vice which can thus pollute the fountain of feeling, and the
infatuation  which can  inthrall the  most powerful intellect,
and  turn it  to the worst  of  purposes, must be appallingly
deep and dangerous.   If so  mighty an evil be  not suppress-
ed, on what ground  can feebler  natures hope to  resist it!
That the class of men  referred to would have been much
more useful, estimable,  and worthy  of trust and imitation,
had  they never gambled, will not be denied.   In a moment
of reflection and conscience, they will not deny it themselves;
but, with feelings of contrition,  will  acknowledge it true,
and  perhaps resolve to abandon their course.  But the tempt-
er returns,  in the form of a dissolute associate, and they
yield to'his  solicitations,  and follow him again to  the hot-
house of profligacy, and the tomb of their own virtues.  Thus
do they descend from  their  elevation, by  consorting  with
reprobates and joining in their revels, and become terrible
examples of vice and mischief.   At best, therefore, they are
but  as archangels fallen and  in ruins,  no less pre-eminent in
apostacy and guilt, than in prostituted strength and forfeited
glory, and dangerous to others precisely in  proportion to the
powers they abuse.   Their example seduces thousands of
inferior beings,  who feel honoured in their  society,  to follow
them into  the  gulf, which  has  swallowed up themselves.
 Be  it remembered, that no greatness,  however splendid, can
 consecrate  a lawless act, or  give it dignity.  On the contra-
 ry, it but renders it  the more pre-eminently disgraceful, and
 and the more pernicious.  The glory of Caesar took nothing
 from the crime of enslaving his  country, nor  the mightiness
 of Napoleon from that of the  millions of lives he  sacrificed
 to his ambition.- In each case, the pre-eminence of the usur-
 per, to use  the words of the poet,  has but the more irrevo- 
(  13)
cably "damned" him "to everlasting fame"!   Of the illus-
trious gambler the same  is true.  The vice he has contract-
ed, sordid in its nature, and as rank in venom as the " plague
of leprosy," clings to his reputation, like the tunic to Hercules,
and infects it with a  malady, as deep and incurable, as it is
foul and repulsive.   Or if, by  an  abandonment of his habits,
the disease itself be  removed, no waters of repentance can
wash away  the  stains it  has  incorporated with his name.
They are  a,s abiding, as the turpitude of their source.
   It is again contended that it is not criminal, in the gambler,
to take the money he has won, because the loser surrenders
it  voluntarily.  True;  and so  does  the  traveller voluntarily
surrender his purse to the highwayman.  But he is constrain-
ed to do so,  by the fear of death,  in case of refusal.   Of two
evils he  but chooses  the lesser.  The  booty,  therefore, is
feloniously obtained.   And the individual robbed by the gam-
bler, gives up his money, from the dread of dishonour, accord-
ing to gambling rules, should  he  venture to  withhold  it.
Death, moreover,  might  be the alternative, in his case also,
desperadoes  in gaming having  often committed murder,  on
account of money won and withheld.   The same principle,
therefore, here alleged in justification of the gambler, may
be, with equal force, adduced, to justify the footpad or  the
pirate.  In each case money is surrendered alike,  by a con-
strained, act of the will.
   But the defence of gambling, on  which its advocates most
confidently rely, is yet to be mentioned. It is that the haz-
ard of losing at  play is mutual, and incurred by the consent
of the parties.  Each gambler is endeavouring to  rifle  the
pockets of his companions,  they  being privy  to his design,
and  by this the vice of the  whole is extinguished.  The
game is a struggle of self-defence, in which the only means
to escape fraud  and wrong, is to commit them; and therefore
the entire proceeding is innocent, and its issue just.
   That common men should argue thus, does not much sur-
prise me.   To  analyze  and  reason, especially  as  to  sub-
jects of any  abstruseness, is not their province.   No wonder, 
                          ( 14 )
 therefore, that they are not at home in it.   But, that enlight-
 ened and educated men, whose business it often  is to defend
 and inculcate right and justice, expound law,  and award  to
 wrong and  injustice  their penalty "and punishment,  should
 thus err, and "palter in a double sense," is matter of aston-
 ishment.  It is a principle  in criminal law, that if one person
 intentionally induces another to assault him,  and kills him,
 when about  to commit the assault, he is guilty of murder.  His
 on this ground  that duelling is indefensible.   The  combat-
 ants, being  under  no control of necessity,  voluntarily incur
 danger, and cannot, therefore,  avail  themselves of the plea
 of self-defence. Hence, to kill in a duel is to commit homi-
 cide, and cannot be defended,  on any principle of morality
 or right.  In like  manner, the gambler, who intentionally
 exposes himself to having a fraud practised on him, is not jus-
 tified in practising a like fraud on his antagonist, by way of
 prevention,  reprisal, or indemnification.  On  the contrary,
 he is  guilty  of adouble crime; the unnecessary and forbidden
exposure of  himself; and  the equally forbidden wrong he
meditates toward another.   If a  felon attempts  to steal my
horse, and even succeeds, I am not therefore justified in steal-
ing his; much less am I authorized to  do so, having sustain-
ed'no loss by him, however felonious might have  been his de-
sign.  If a highwayman demands my  purse, I have a right to
resist, and, if necessary, to take away  his life, in my defence.
But I have no right  to rob him.  To do  so, would be an act  in
me, as illegal and criminal, as that he was meditating against
me.   Nor have I a right to retaliate,  in kind,  on the pick-
pocket or the cheat.  Much  weaker  would be my claim  to
either of these forms of retaliation, had I incurred intention-
ally the hazard of  being wronged.
  This  subject  may be stated  in yet another light, which
will render the unsoundness and absurdity of any and every
defence of gambling still more palpable.  A party of regu-
lar pickpockets resort to some rendevous, avowedly to prac-
tise on each other their light-fingered trade.  Will the strug-
gle  for victory in address and dexterity, extinguish the vice. 
                          (  15 )
 or detract from its criminality?  No one will expose his want
 of judgment, by  an  affirmative answer.  It  would  be nearer
 truth to say,  that the flagitiousness of the  crime  would be
 magnified, by the new and  audacious mode of practicing it.
 Yet it  is just as criminal to play for money, at games of
 card or dice, as at a game of pocket-picking.   In either case,
 money  is  feloniously taken,  by  the successful competitor.
 And mere modes in felony make no essential  alteration in
 guilt.   There is  no  more of  crime, in pulling an associate's
 watch out of his pocket,  without an intention to keep it, than
 there is  in playing  cards or chess, without  a bet.   It is  the
 unhallowed and lawless design, that constitutes the guilt.   To
 deprive a comrade  of his watch,  by a game at cards, or a
 throw of dice, is as clearly unjust, and therefore, as immoral,
 as to steal it; though, in  consequence of fallacious  views and
 a pernicious  custom, it is not  accounted  so ignominious or
 criminal.
   But  why do I  dwell on the proof  of  a position,  which is-
 already self-evident!  To adduce further arguments in main-
 tenance of it, would be a waste of time.  Gambling is as in-
 defensible, as murder. And from its boundless  prevalence,
 it surpasses  murder greatly, in  the extent of the misery
 it produces, and the amount  of moral corruption it  diffuses
 through society.  For every single individual that is seduced
 to profligacy  and  ruin, by the example and devices of the as-
 sassin, thousands  are thus seduced, by those  of the gambler.
 Hence the deep abhorrence, with  which the vice of the lat-
 ter has been  regarded, by the enlightened and the virtuous,
as well in ancient as in modern  times.  Cataline,  the chief
of conspirators, was scarcely less reprobated for his gambling,
than his treason.   And,  in his career of crime, Arnold be-
came a gambler first, and then a traitor.  It  is even more
than suspected that his losses, in the  former character, aided
in urging him to the  guilt of  the latter.  Be that as it may,
he was an arch-criminal in both; and gambling was the elder
sin.
  A  passing notice of female gamblers may not be amiss; for, 
                         ( 16)
disgraceful and  offensive to delicacy  as the fact is, society
contains such  unsexed beings.  I  have never  known one of
them that was'an amiable woman.  True; many amiable and
estimable women,  exemplary  wives  and excellent mothers,
may be induced, to oblige others, to participate in what they
consider the mere amusement of a card table.   But they
never  play to  win, nor enter fiercely into the spirit of the
game.   Even  in what they do, however, they act improper-
ly, by  setting an example to their families, that may prove
disastrous.  But, different from these, as vice is from virtue,
ferocity from mildness, and impudence from modesty, are fej
male gamblers.  They engage in the sport with inordinate de-
votedness, play furiously  for gain, and are,  without an excep-
tion, shrews and termigants.   Were they not so, they would
have neither taste nor fitness  for the game.   And, to their
other exceptionable qualities,  they usually  add the more pet-
ty,  but hardly less disreputable vices of tattling, slander, and
unlady-like language.
  The philosophy and alliances of this vice, shall  next be
the subject of a few remarks.  Its affinity to theft, pocket-
picking, and robbery has been already asserted.  It shall be
my business, now, to state to you'the grounds, on which the
assertion rests.  That gambling  is analogous,  in its object, to
those  three forms of felony, has  been already shown.   It is
a fraudulent attempt,  in one man, to'deprive another of his
property, without an equivalent.  And, to add to the guilt of
the crime, that attempt is made,  in avast majority of cases,
by the most  sinister  means.   But,  having hitherto  spoken
chiefly of what is  called honorable gambling (the poet too
 tells us of " an  honorable murderer.'''')  I shall not, now, make
 any special reference to that  kind which  is the more flagiti-
 ous.   The  least criminal  form  of it is bad  enough  for my
 purpose.
    Gambling  is  as closely allied to  theft, po'eket-pieking, and
 robbery, in its origin, as it is in  its end.   The parentage of the
 four vices is the same.  They spring from the same seed, and
 are nourished by the same soil, the form  of  culture only be- 
(  17)
ing different.  They are all, in an equal degree, the growth
of the animal compartment of a badly balanced brain, and
of the same portions of  that compartment.   In other words,
they are the product of the  abuse of a  given set of the ani-
mal faculties.  The  real human  faculties—those,  1  mean,
which peculiarly distinguish man from the brute creation,
and alone give  him  dignity and  worth—are all opposed to
them, condemn  them,  and  strive to prevent and  suppress
them.  But that I may be fully understood, I must speak more
definitely.
   It is acknowledged by every one, who  pretends to an ac-
quaintance with mental philosophy, that the brain is the or-
gan of the mind, through which it manifests all its faculties.
Those faculties, which are numerous, are divided into animal,
intellectual, and moral, each one of which is the product of
a given portion  of the  brain.   Nor  has  the  same portion,
which serves as the instrument  of one  faculty,  any direct a-
gency  in the production of another.  Each faculty, there-
fore,  is the exclusive offspring of its own appropriate cerebral
organ.  Some of the animal  organs are, Amativeness, the
instrument of physical  love, Philoprogenitiveness, the instru-
ment of the love of offspring, Adhesiveness, the instrument
of friendship and  general  attachment,  Combativeness, of
courage, Destructiveness,  of the propensity to destroy, tor-
ture, and inflict other sorts of pain and injury, Secretiveness,
of concealment, deception, and falsehood, and Covetiveness,
the instrument of the love of gain.   Of the intellectual or-
gans, the Reflective ones, consisting of  Comparison and Cau-
sality, constitute the higher class, and are the more important
 to my present purpose.  Of the moral organs,  three of the
principal ones  are, Benevolence, whose name sufficiently in-
dicates its facul'ty, Veneration,  which  furnishes one of the
 chief elements of piety-, and Conscientiousness, the source of
 thelove of justice and  right.   There are several other moral
 organs  of importance; but I have  enumerated only  these
 three, as being peculiarly opposed to the vice I am consider-
 ing,  and calculated to  restrain it, when strongly developed.
                             C 
                          ( is ;
In all low and habitual profligates, to whatever forms of vice
they may be addicted, those organs are defective.
   It has been stated,  that  gambling,  theft, pocket-picking,
and robbery belong to the animal compartment of the brain.
In further specification,!  shall now add, that they are all the
immediate growth of Covetiveness, Secretiveness, Dcstructive-
ness and Combativeness,* the four most dangerous of the or-
gans—dangerous, I mean, when not held under due control, by
the higher organs—and it is only when they are allowed to act
in excess,and become rebellious, that they lead to the perpetra-
tion of either of the vices, just enumerated.  In each of those
vices, however,  the several organs specified are not equally
concerned.  In daring robbery, the chief instruments are CoVe-
tiveness and Combativeness; and the same is  true cf what is
called manly gambling.   In neither of these modes of vice is it
necessary for Secretiveness or Destructiveness to take a very
prominent part.   Circumstances may occur, however, to call
them both into action.  They clearly belong, therefore, to the
family group.  In theft and pocket-picking, Secretiveness is
necessarily associated with Covetiveness.  So it  is in unfair
gambling; and,  as already stated, the  practice is almost al-
ways unfair.  He that takes intentionally another's property,
without giving an equivalent for it, is rarely conscientious in
relation to the means.   With but few exceptions, he makes
no distinction between right and wrong,  foul and fair, except
as his sordid selfishness directs him.
  To  furnish  further  illustration and proof of my  position.
Covetiveness is the basis of the four kindred vices, of which
I  am speaking.  Without an excess of that, constituting an
inordinate and reprehensible love of gain, there would be  nei-
ther a wish entertained, nor an effort made, to  take posses-
sion, in  any way, of property not  fairly earned, or legally
paid for.  Without Combativeness, the source of daring, the
traveller's purse would  not be demanded on the highway, at

  * Several of the intellectual faculties are also concerned.  They,
however, are employed only as means for the gratification of the  four
animal enea here enumerated. 
                          (  19 )
 the risk of the felon's life.  Hence noted robbers are always
 intrepid.  Lafitte, the pirate,  was an instance of this.  So
 was Barrington,  the  celebrated English highwayman; and
 so was  Lewis, the daring Rob  Roy of the  Alleghany moun-
 tains.   Without  Secretiveness, in  full developement and
 high activity, there could not be practised a sufficient amount
 of stratagem  and device, for the procurement  of gain, by
 theft and pocket-picking.  Nor, without Destructiveness in
 unusual vigour, would one man causelessly inflict pain  or in-
 jury on another; much less  would he rob, steal, or pocket-
 pick, and then murder, to prevent detection.  These several
 views are as applicable to gambling, as  to the  other  three
 vices.   As just  stated, lawless Covetiveness is not only a
 necessary ingredient  in them all; it is their vital spirit.   Cor-
 rectly may  I subjoin, that it is an indispensable element in
 all games of hazard;  or  rather  in  the minds of those who
 practice them.   To the gambler, moreover, courage is neces-
 sary, to induce him to hazard  his money on the  game; he
 must be actuated, more or less, by a feeling of Destructive
 ness,  else he would not wantonly injure, and often ruin his
 antagonist; and Secretiveness is the  source of his stratagems
 and overreaching.  Thus strong are the mutual alliances of
 gambling, theft, pocket-picking, and robbery, which proves
 them satisfactorily to  be of the same family.   Clearly, then,
 in profligacy and guilt, gamblers, thieves  and  pickpockets,
 robbers  and pirates,  are  but different species  of the  same
 genus.   Let gentlemen and family-gamblers ponder well this
 classification, and say, in a moment of reflection and consci-
 ence, whether they are willing  to purchase the gratification
 and profit  which play affords  them,  at  the expense of the
 deep stain it imprints on  their character!
  The hostility borne toward these vices,  by the moral and
 reflecting organs, has  been already referred  to; and the  proof
 of it is clear.  It is borne  equally,  moreover, toward the
 whole of them.  Benevolence,  the source of kindness, mer-
 cy, and  charity, is opposed to them, by reason of the injuries
and miseries they inflict on our race.   Vererition is at war 
                         (20)

with them, because they are in violation of the commands of
Heaven.   And Conscientiousness combats them, for the out-
rage they commit on the principles of justice.   Nor are the
reflective organs less  inimical  to them, in consideration of
the wreck  they threaten to all that is orderly and valuable
in society.   Hope and  Ideality, too,  whose enjoyments arise
from the  beauties of the present, and the brightness of the
future, and which turn, with dissatisfaction, from what is pol-
luted, unsightly, or without  promise, are  permanently their
foes.  In fine; every element of reason and justice, patriot-
ism and philanthropy, and of whatever else is allied to virtue
and friendly to man, is in  array against  them, and against
them, 1 say equally; no  discrimination,  in principle, being
made between them.  Safely may I add, that  no man with
moral and reflective organs  preponderating in power, over
his animal organs, has ever been a gambler or  a robber, a
thief or a pick-pocket.  As soon shall ponderous bodies mount
upward,  by the  influence of gravity, or  light ones descend
through a heavier medium.  I shall only subjoin, that the fa-
culty most directly opposed to these vices, is Conscientious-
ness, to which fraud of every description is peculiarly odious.
That faculty is, more than any other, the natural foe of in-
justice and knavery.
   Such,  I repeat, are the native and mutual affinities of gam-
bling and theft, pocket-picking and robbery—the issue of the
game parentage, instinct with the same spirit, dependent on
the same principles, aiming at the same end, and productive
of like consequences.  What, then,  is  the quality that dis-
tinguishes them from each other?   On the score of spirit and
principle, I say again, (and the reiteration can hardly be too
frequent) no such quality exists;  but, in their effects on so-
ciety, the  difference between them is immense.  For everv
single instance of ruin and wretchedness arising from theft,
pocket-picking, and robbery united, gambling alone produces
thousands.   Search the  records of the four vices, written in
despair,  madness, suicide, bankruptcy, the reduction of wives
and children  from opulence and ease, to  want and  beggary, 
                         (21)
with  their withered and tottering frames, sunken eyes, and
squalid countenances, and the many other forms of individu-
al,  family, and social desolation thence  resulting, and they
will amply sustain the truth of my assertion. Yet are thieves,
pick-pockets, and  highwaymen called/e/orcs, and  senlenced
to imprisonment, transportation, or the  gibbet;  while gam-
blers  are  denominated  sporting  gentlemen,  or gentlemen of
pleasure;  are  welcomed into fashionable  society; and  are
themselves, in many instances, mirrors of fashion, and leaders
of the ton.   My allusion is to gentlemen gamblers, who assume
the mask of some other calling, by day, and consort with the
Black-leg  and the  ruffian,  by night.  And grieved I am to
say, that  there  are multitudes of these day-maskers  and
night-revellers, in every section  of our country.
   In  the practical nefariousness of gambling, theft, and  rob-
bery, there is another enormity  which attaches to the former,
but from which the  two latter are comparatively free.   It is
the contagiousness of the vice.  While the gambler robs the
youth of  the means allotted  for  his education, or as a capital
for business, he imbues him  with the  fell corruption of the
gaming table, seduces him form the paths of rectitude and  hon-
our, and initiates him in his own detestable occupation.  Thus
is the son not only beggared in his fortune, but made a source
of  mortification and mourning to his parents and family,  and,
in moments of awakened conscience and sober reflection, of
abhorrence to himself.   The thief and the robber are inno-
cent  of this.   They open no schools of instruction in profli-
gacy and  felony,  but,  in  comparison, confine wilhin them-
selves the guilt and disgrace of their lawless vocation.  Nor
is the whole yet told.  To supply himself with means for the
 gaming table, the apprentice pilfers from the drawers of his
master, the  shop-boy and  the clerk from those of their em-
 ployers, and bank-officers  rifle the vault and the strong-box.
 To complete the  picture; the  ward, for the same purpose,
 steals from his guardian, the brother from his sisters, and the
 son from  his parents!   So closely is theft allied to the card-
 table!—This is no  fancy-piece,  but a plain representation of
 daily events. 
                          ( 22 )
   A catastrophe still more  disastrous not unfrequently  be-
 falls the gambler.   A brief anecdote will best reveal it to
 you.   There was, not far from this  place, a few years ago,
 an industrious and  accomplished young mechanic, of excel-
 lent promise, and highly  respected.  At a few social card par-
 ties, he was a successful adventurer, which so infatuated him,
 that he continued  to  play, neglected first, and  ultimately
 abandoned, his trade, and became  a  Black-leg.  He  had
 married an amiable young woman, who  died from mortifica-
 tion and grief,  on account  of his irregularities  and vices.
 After various adventures and difficulties, he at length killed
 a civil officer, in an  attempt to arrest him.  By this murder,
 he escaped arrest and imprisonment, for the time, and is now
 a  fugitive from justice, destined,  should  he  be apprehended,
 to expire on a gibbet.  Cases of  this sort are not unfrequent.
 Yet still is gambling not only tolerated and countenanced,
 but also practised, in what  is falsely styled  the best society—
 I say "y^/tfeA/" so "styled,"  because it consists of individuals,
 who are engaged in  the habitual violation of the most divine
 precept that ever issued  from the lips of a teacher, "Do un-
 to others, as you would that they should do untoyoU." When
 seated at the gaming-table, the members of this  " best soci-
 ety" practically reverse  this admonition, by endeavouring to
do to others what they eagerly strive to prevent others from doing
to  them.  Such  is the  gambler's golden rule—the burden of
 all his purposes, and  the motto  of his life.  And I  repeat,
that  "very one who plays for money is a gambler, as well in guilt,
as in name.
   But all the evils of gambling are not yet enumerated; nor
even the worst  of them.   I have represented  it as a conta-
 gious vice; and  it is so, from a twofold cause; example, and
inheritance.  Of the first  of these  causes  I have already
spoken.  On the last I shall now make  a few observations.
   All  constitutional  qualities descend, by inheritance, from
parents to their offspring.   This  is a law of hereditary de-
scent, which no  well  informed physiologist will controvert.
And it is most  powerful and certain, as relates to qualities 
                         (  23 )
seated in the brain; that being the master organ of the sys-
tem.  But it has been  already shown, that the gambling
propensity is  of cerebral origin;  and,  that  by being long
fostered, and habitually cultivated, it increases in strength,
and becomes constitutional, cannot be doubted.  Facts innu-
merable prove that it  does.   It even assumes, in many in-
stances, a form of positive and permanent monomania.  The
history of hundreds of gamblers testify  to this.   Nor is the
reason concealed from us.  By being constantly and intense-
ly exercised, the cerebral organs concerned in gambling at-
tain a size and a degree  of vigour,  and are thrown into a
state of excitement so inordinate, as  to become ungoverna-
ble.  Their condition approaches  to that  of intoxication.
Hence, like the dram-sot, when deprived of his bottle, and
the tobacco-sot of the juice and fume of his weed, the gambler
is wretched, when absent from the gaming table, and is driv-
en to it by an impulse he cannot resist.   1 say he "cannot,"
because he  is insane.   And one form of insanity is as irre-
sistable as another.  If it  were resislable, it would not be in-
sanity.   In  many cases, the gambling monomania can be no
more withstood, than that under which the invalid believes
himself haunted  by ghosts and goblins, visited  by angels, or
favoured by  an  intercourse with the  apostles and prophets.
But madness of every description is known to  be communi-
cable from parents to offspring.
   Thus is the  propensity for  gambling rendered  constitu-
tional,  by the  predominancy in size and power of the cere-
bral organs immediately concerned in it.   And the state and
character of those organs descend, by inheritance, from pa-
rents to their children, as the state and character of the lungs
do, in hereditary  consumption, of the lymphatic system, in
scrophula, or of any other organ of the body, or any feature
of the face.   A gambling father, therefore, has presented to
him the prospect (the hateful product of his own guilt) of be-
coming, not only the sire of gambling sons, but  the progeni-
tor  of  a  race of gamblers  indefinitely  extended.  Or the
euccession may  be diversified with thieves, robbers, and pick- 
                          ( 24  )
pockets, according to the form  of training received.  It is
on this principle, that the propensity to rapine is hereditary
among the Arabs, that of theft  among the Tartars, and the
propensity to murder among the Caribs.   By thus entailing
on his offspring the moral taint, which his own vices have en-
gendered in himself,  the gambler verifies the allegory, that,
"the  fathers having eaten sour grapes, the teeth of the chil-
dren  are set on edge."  Be this view of the subject received
and  treated now, as it may, it will  rank with physiological
axioms hereafter.  All accurate observers and enlightened
thinkers will acknowledge,  that the gambling  organs and
propensity may  become heir-looms  in families, and thus the
vice be perpetuated.  Nor will it be less certainly settled,
as a maxim in physiology, that a rage for gambling rises of-
ten to madness, and should be so considered and treated. JVly
precise meaning is, that gambling monomania consists in an
organic affection of the brain, produced by an excess of ex-
citement and action in certain  portions Of it, and can  be
cured only by such remedies as are suitable to other forms of
phlogistic insanity.   For the affection is as truly phlogistic,
though not  as  intensely  so, as  phrenitis  or peripneumony.
And hospitals for mcid gamblers, where the treatment should
consist in low diet, seclusion, clay  caps, and  other cold ap-
plications to the head, every form of evacuation, as symp-
toms might indicate, and  sound moral instruction, would be
valuable institutions.   In this, I am serious.   Give me the
direction of such an establishment, with the requisite means
at my  command, and  I will agree to the forfeiture of my
reputation, if I  do not, in a reasonable  time, cure of their
vicious propensities the most'arrant  gamblers in the United
States.  They shall voluntarily acknowledge, that the prac-
tice is criminal, and that, for the time being, they have no
desire to resume it; but the  reverse.   And the cure will con-
sist in having given to the moral and reflective organs of the
brain, the mastery  over the animal  ones, that had been re-
bellious.  I will not promise, that the gambling mania shall
never recur; because, here, as in other complaints, relapses 
( 25 )
may be produced by an improper exposure to exciting causes.
Add to this, that madness, in all its forms, is more or less of
a periodical disease.  To the gambling mania there probably
attaches no exemption from this law.
   If, then, it be true, that the propensity to  gamble may be
communicated  by parents to their offspring, how  fearful  are
the responsibilities of fathers, who recklessly addict them-
selves to that vice, in defiance of  reason, morality, and law!
Under circumstances,  which aggravate their guilt, by strip-
ping them of every excuse for their  profligacy,  they  incur
the risk of doubly disgracing and  ruining their families, and
inflicting a twofold injury on the community; first, by their
infectious example; and,  again, by communicating constitu-
tionally to their sons, the moral contamination, which makes
lazars of themselves.  Men who will not be moved, by con-
siderations like these, to abandon any form, of vice, however
firmly they may be  wedded to it, are dead to the calls of the
domestic and social affections, callous to conscience, and lost
to virtue, and  deserve to  be marked, as heartless, husbands
and  fathers,  hopeless reprobates, and  enemies of the com-
munity.
   For one form of gambling, (or, to accommodate my langu-
age  to fastidious ears, I shall call it sporting,) which is alarm-
ingly fashionable, a more plausible defence  is attempted.   I
anticipate, therefore, some difficulty, in convincing even pure
minded men, and deliberate thinkers, who have not thorough-
ly examined the subject,  that the sport is vicious, and  the
defence of it fallacious.   Perhaps a leading cause of this is,
that it is not pursued under the seal of secrecy, or the cover
of night, but publicly, and in the face of day.  It need scarce-
ly be added, that I allude to horse-racing.  That, to those
who are more  engrossed in present scenes,  than  concerned
about their consequences, there is amusement and gratifica-
tion  in the sports of the  turf, no one will deny.   The fine
figures, lofty bearing, bold and emulous spirit, elastic move-
ments, and surpassing fleetness of  the noble animals, excite
admiration,  and almost  persuade  us that the scene is  inno-
                          D 
(  26 )
cent—certainly they  induce us to wish it so.  But, where
strong feeling is awakened,  first impressions should be held
suspicious,  until coolly considered.   When we look  on  the
crowd that assembles to witness the scene, listen to their  li-
centious and profane discourse, examine their wild bacchan-
alian  carousals, observe their  reckless dissipation of means,
which they ought to appropriate to better purposes, and re-
flect on the consequences,  our sentiments change.   We al-
most sicken at the contrast,  are ready to  denounce the  spec-
tacle  as infamous, and  to proclaim the horses by far more wor-
thy and honorable animals,  than most of the human beings
around them.
  Shall I be told, that  the culpable behaviour of the specta-
tors is not a necessary appendage  of horse-racing, but  only
an incidental concomitant of it?  I reply, that, whether in-
cidental or essential, it is a never-failing concomitant—at least
in a higher or lower degree.  In that respect, therefore, the
practice  is either bad in itself; or it  is  flagrantly  abused.
Whether we  examine it in Europe or America,  the confu-
sion,  riot,  and licentiousness which mark it, are the  same.
We must, therefore, consider it, and speak of it, as we know
it to be; not as we might wish it, or as our fancies might re-
present it,  under some imaginary state of society.   A turf-
scene, quiet and becoming,  from the beginning to the end of
it, has never been witnessed.   Nor, while the propensities of
man continue as rebellious to reason and decorum, as they
now are,  is it to be hoped for.  The sporting field will al-
ways continue, as it always has done, to  present offensive
and  disreputable  spectacles of idleness  and  intemperance,
and a revolting carnival of the grosser passions.  There is
nothing in it allied to either  refinement  or virtue—nothing
 to  encourage industry,  strengthen or elevate the  intellect,
 promote morality, or  advance, in any way, the public good—
 but palpably the reverse.  Nor is the worst yet told.   The turf
 and its purlieus are the  chosen haunts of gamblers and pick-
 pockets, jockies and sharpers, and of other characters,  that
 must not be named.   Nor does the  footpad fail to partake of
 the rev«li.   Attracted by the fit opportunity to practice their 
                         (27 )

callings,  those  lawless  sons and daughters of theft, rapine,
and debauchery, crowd to the place, from all the surrounding
region, often to the distance of several hundred miles.  And
the scenes they enact are in keeping with their characters.
Is it possible, then, that any one of  intelligence, reflection,
or sound morality,  will  or can seriously and  conscientiously
advocate  a sport, which is thus  constantly accompanied!—
which calls together, as if by fate, a mass of depravity and
moral loathsomeness, which reason proclaims and experience
proves to be a  mighty evil, and from which  all that is pure
and valuable, in humanity, instinctively recoils!-As soon shall
contraries be identified, and opposites unite  in harmony, as
any pageant that is spotless and praiseworthy, be the uniform
 resort of profligacy and guilt.   In the moral world, as in the
 natural, like attracts like—vice, vice, and virtue, virtue.  By
 no kind  of direct  affinity, or collateral influence,  can inno-
 cence and guilt consort with each other.
   Shall  I be told  again, as I often have been, that  the sports
 of the turf improve the breed of horses?   Granted, for.sake
 of the argument;  though not conceded as a  truth.   Do they
 also improve the breed of men?  Do they quicken industry,
 and beget habits  of sobriety and economy?  Do  they pro-
 mote health, purify morals,  refine   manners,  enlighten the
 mind, rectify the  taste, or elevate, in any way, the  character.
 of man?  Finally; when considered, in all their relations and
 consequences,  do  they advance  permanently either public or
 individual good?   To  answer these questions affirmatively
 would  be hazardous to reputation:  because it  would be to
 assert what sound judgment  condemns,  and experience dis-
 proves.   Replies  in the negative  Can  alone be  supported.
 Nor does racing  improve the breed of the  most useful class
 of horses.   Far from it.  The  fleetest of those  animals  are
 not best fitted for the  most important purposes—the opera-
  lions of the plough, the wagon, the dray, the pleasure-carri-
  age, or  the saddle.  Even in this age  of break-neck and
  space-consuming velocity, we do not wish, when travelling on
  ordinary business, or for profitable  observation, to  be spirited 
                          ( 28)
 along at the rate of twenty or thirty knots an hour.   A mod-
 erate but firm and  steady gait, without fretting, faullcringor
 flagging, is most desirable; and for that the racer is not dis-
 tinguished.  He has more of metal, than of stanchness in
 him.  A horse greatly inferior to him in fleetness, and that
 was never  intended to compete  with him on the turf, will
 surpass him in strength and ordinary action, and  break him
 down  in the useful  labours of agriculture or the road.  And
 he will do so, on the same ground that a sturdy farmer will
 vanquish, in durability and general efficiency, a tumbler or
 an opera-dancer.   That a  horse  may be really and highly
 useful, he must be produced, reared, and trained for a given
 purpose, and in such a manner, as'to  adapt him best to some
 truly useful employment.  By those who are skilful in breed-
 ing and instructing  them, horses may be very strikingly modi-
 fied and improved in spirit  and temper, no less  than in size,
 strength and figure.  But, to call  racing a  "useful  employ-
 ment," is a perversion of terms.   Am  I told  that blooded
 horses are  more valuable  than  those  of any  other class?
 Granted;  but  all blooded  horses  are  not bred  for the turf;
 nor are they fitted for it.  There is but one caste of Arabian
 horses that are peculiarly  fleet.  And they, being necessarily
 light, are suited only  for action,  nor for purposes  of great
strength. .  But, to be highly valuable, a  horse must possess
 both strength and action, as other castes  of the Arabian do;
 while true racers do not.
   For  what purposes, then,  are running horses  more valua-
 ble than others?  The reply is easy;  to pass swiftly over the
 ground, in a race or a hunt, leap over a six-bar gate,  be in
at the  death of the fox, and sometimes, but not always, to be
admired for their fine forms; and there their superior quali-
ties end.  Neither in England nor America, are racers the
handsomest  or  the  most useful caste  of  horses.   Were the
whole  class extinct, its  loss would be unfelt  by any of the
great interests of society.   The most serviceable  horses in
this country are in New England, where the turf is unknown.
And they are sufficiently elegant  for  style and parade.  In 
                          ( 29 )
Virginia, on the contrary, where the breed of running horses
has been most extensively  and successfully  cultivated, the
common farming and riding horses are of the most ordinary
character—greatly inferior to those of the same class north
of the Potomac.   Their cultivation and improvement are ne-
glected, and racers only made an object of skilfhll and earnest
attention.   The  truth of this is confirmed by the spectacle
of any  public country meeting in that State.  Go to such a
place, and, with a few exceptions, you will see nothing but a
comparatively miserable collection of horses—far from being
equal to those you will find, in a like situation, in any of the
middle  or eastern States, where the animal is reared for us«5,
not for sporting or show.   And this is more especially true
of eastern Virginia, the chief nursery of the breed of racers.
In a  land of primogeniture, fox-hunting, and opulent aristocracy,
the turf-hor9e is at home; but he is dislocated, and worse than
useless,  in a region of equal rights,  sober industry, and profita-
ble agriculture.  To the State of Virginia, he  has  been  a
grievous evil;  and he will  become so to Kentucky, unless his
culture, with the idleness, negligence,  dissipation, and im-
morality  it leads  to, be abandoned.  To his breeder and
owner, and the fortunate adventurer on his speed, he may be-
come a source of profit; but,  to the community at large, he
is an unqualified loss—else there is no  harm in bad habits,
misplaced attention, demoralizing associations and practices,
and  waste of time.
   From Kentucky numerous  droves  of valuable horses are
taken annually to the southern market.   By whom are they
reared?  By the breeders of running horses?  No truly; but
by substantial farmers, who  distinguish correctly between
fancy end rea%/the showy and the useful.   For every single
horse sent to the south, by  those who breed for the turf, hun-
dreds, perhaps thousands,  are sent by  men who have never
owned  a racer, and rarely  seen one.  In fine; the sentiment,
that turf-sporting improves the breed of horses, is propagated
either  by men personally interested in having it believed,
by hasty and superficial observers and thinkers, or by those, 
(30)
who neither observe  nor think, but repeat, as talking ma-
chines, the  empty notions they  receive  from others.  By
whatever means, however, or through whatever channel pro-
pagated, it is unfounded.
  Considered,  then, in its character and consequences, horse-
racing is an evil of no common magnitude, and ought to be
suppressed.  If for no other reason, it stands condemned, on
the ground, that it is a sport of hazard, whose design and effect
are, to transfer property from one person to another, without
an equivalent, and in opposition to the well known wishes of
the former.  In  that respect, therefore, though not in ruffian
violence, it is on par with robbery.
  Once more.   We are told that a man's property is his own;
and that he  has, therefore,, a right  to  dispose  of it as he
pleases.  That is a  mistake.   A man has no right, except
the right of power, to use his property in such a way, as to in-
jure himself or his family;  much less to injure others.  In this
case right and justice are the same.   No man has a right,
therefore, to shoot himself with his own pistol, because, by so
doing, he acts  unjustly to  his family and to society, who have
claims on him; nor, for the same reason, has he a right to cut
off his fingers  and  toes, or otherwise maim himself, with his ■
own knife.  He has no right to burn his own house, even
though it stands  apart, and remote from  all  other  houses;
much less has he  a right to do so, at the  risk of  consuming
the dwellings  of his  neighbours.   Nor have two  gamblers a
right  to play  a  game  of hazard,  the terms  being that the
loser shall destroy his own  horses and  cattle, or-commit to
the flames his  household  furniture.  Finally;  a man has no
right so to use, or rather abuse his possessions, as to set a bad
example by  his acts, or causlessly diminish the wealth of  the
community.   Any exceptions that exist, are rights of necessi-
ty, where a lesser evil is purposely incurred, to avoid or pre-
vent a greater.  All  games of hazard, then, where  proper-
ty  is staked, being of pernicious example, are, morally wrong,
and should be discountenanced by society, and prohibited by
law—horse-racing not excepted 
                          (  31 )
   Such are my sentiments on the subject of gambling. That
 some persons will silently dissent from  them, others openly
 oppose them, and perhaps a third class take offence at them,
 I am prepared to believe.  But, however much I may regret
 the latter event, and however little I may  have intended to
 produce it, neither consideration, nor all of them united, can
 arrest me in my course, or induce me to swerve from the ob-
 ject I have  in view.  I am actuated on this occasion,  by  no
 private motive.   I have no secret grudge to gratify, nor any
 individual wrong to avenge.   No gambler  has ever seriously
 injured me either in my  purse, person, or reputation; nor,
 with a very few exceptions,  have  I, knowingly, exchanged,
 with a professional gambler, even a passing salutation, dur-
 ing the last half of  my lifetime.  My earnest and only de-
 sire, at present, is, to perform, with faithfulness, my humble
 part, in a confederate and general effort, which I  trust will
 be made, to exterminate one  of the most ruinous of vices.
   I have delivered this  address, in obedience to a strong and
 lively sense  of duty, no less to  the community at large, than
 to you, as a portion  of it, to whom I am bound by ties and
 obligations,  not to be disregarded by me.  Though your main
 object, in resorting to  this school, is the acquisition of pro-
 fessional knowledge, it  is not  the only one confided  to the
 attention and care of your Preceptors.   You have other im-
 portant interests at stake—your means of  subsistence, your
 reputation, and your morals; the latter by far the. most sacred
 and invaluable.  And permit me to tell you, as a friend and
 counsellor, and to  warn you with sblemnness and parental
solicitude, that, unless  you  be vigilant, and alive to the
schemes that are meditated against you, they are all in jeop-
ardy.  Even now, in this city, and, for aught I know, with-
in this sanctuary  of science  and letters, heartless and con-
scienceless auditors of what I have said, your foes are in am-
bush for you.  With the fellness of the tiger crouching in
his jungle, eager to glut  himself with  the  blood of the un-
wary, they are waiting "in  grim repose,"  ready to pounce
on you, and  make you  their  prey.  I  allude to those moral 
                          (  32 )

iirrers, the Bl.uv^eos and  gentlemen gamblers, by whom
w* are infested.  And, to you, the latter are  the more dan-
gerous of the two, because the most  specious and least sus-
pected.  They will  betray you, if not  "with a kiss," with
the insidious smile and  prostitute  courtesy of proffered hospi-
tality.  Of this 1 could give many atrocious examples. Shun,
1 implore you, as you would  the breath of pestilence, or the
path  of  the Sirocco, the atmosphere  they pollute.   It is as
rank in moral, as  the emanation of the Upas, in physical
poison.   Its touch, if not deadly, is unavoidable contamina-
tion.   Be his reputed standing what it may, suspect the de-
signs,  and guard against the devices  of the man, who seeks
your  acquaintance,  under a fair exterior  and insinuating
manners, and asks you to join him, in  a social game of cards.
His eye is on  your purse, and he will  beggar it if he can.
Nor arc  your reputation and morals  less endangered, if he
gain  your  confidence, and  become your companion.  That
word social, however  innocently  and  attractively  it  may
sound, has  seduced  into mischief, and destroyed, its thous-
ands.  An artful profligate invites an unsuspecting youth to
join him, first, in  a social bottle  of  wine,  and,  next, in a
social game of cards, makes him drink to intoxication, rifles
his pocket, gives him a taste for play, and thus  initiates him
in a course, which  leads to intemperance, gambling, and
profligacy, and ends in ruin.   A bravo asks an acquaintance,
against whom he harbours  a design  of blood, to take a so-
cial evening walk with him, and, in a moment of requested or
proffered service, treacherously murders him.   A practised
libertine gains permission to  visit a family, in a social way,
and repays the favour, by seducing to infamy a confiding fe-
male.  In like manner, gamblers have also their social snares,
in which they entangle and  destroy the unwary.   And, I re-
peat, that such traitors are now in the midst of us.  Again,
therefore,  I earnestly entreat, and  solemnly caution you, to
hold no intercourse with them.
   As to  professional gamblers, who are, already, not  only
notoriously infamous, but callous to infamy, and content with 
                         ( 33 )

degradation,  nothing can  protect  society  from them, but
criminal and conservative law,  wisely framed, correctly in-
terpreted, and strictly  executed.  For the suppression and
prevention of genteel.and family gambling, there exists an-
other and a more effectual measure; and  public sentiment
must be the agent to enforce it.  By that, every  form of pri-
vate gambling should be stript of its glossy guise and seduc-
tive harlotry, held up to reprobation in its naked odiousness,
and publicly branded as a dishonour and  a crime.  Its per-
petrators  and  abettors  should  be  excluded from  places of
public trust and  emolument, as well  as  from the bosom of
honorable  society,  and  held fit  objects for  the "finger of
scorn," and the  eye of abhorrence, until cleansed  of  their
taint in  the waters of reformation.  But  this is  not all.
Public houses, which give  accommodation and countenance
to professional gamblers,  should be  marked and shunned by
the friends of the community, as haunts of vice unworthy of
patronage.   All strangers, moreover,  unacquainted  with
their character,  should be warned againsU'esortino- to them.
Let these things be done, (and they can  be best  done  by as-
sociations formed for the purpose)  and the evil will be ex-
terminated.  Nor could any event rejoice me  more, nor any
measure  redound more  to your honour and benefit, as indi-
viduals and a  class, than that you  should erect yourselvea
into such a society, to guard the school, under  whose banner
you have  enrolled yourselves, and whose ornament and  pride
I trust you will become, from the abomination of gambling.
Having organized yourselves  for the purpose, solemnly ad-
monish your fellow-members,  individually and collectively,
against the vice; and, should any one of them be found guil-
ty of it, fix on him  a mark of merited disgrace, and hold no
communion with him.   And in this  your  Preceptors will so
far co-operate with you, as to exclude him for ever from the
honours of the University.   The  rites and  badges of this
institution must  never be desecrated to  give  standing  to a
gambler.   By this measure, if adopted and practised on, you
will  set an example that will  be applauded  and followed,
                          E 
( 34)
 and confer a benefit on the community, which will be accept-
 ed with gratitude, and  will cause your  names to be held in
 honorable remembrance, when the tomb shall be your dwell-
 ing.  There is a ripeness in public feeling  for such an en-
 terprise.  Indications not to be mistaken convince me, that
 the period has  arrived,  when  a war, in a confederate form,
 may be waged successfully against the vice of gambling.   In
 the metropolis of Virginia, our mother State,  the  conflict
has commenced, under the auspices of an anti-gambling asso-
ciation.  And it would rejoice me immeasurably, were the
standard, in the West, first unfurled in Transylvania, under a
like association, and  the first  blow inflicted, by her high-
minded sons. 
        ANTI-GAMBLING  SOCIETY
                      OF

TRANSYLVANIA.  UNIVERSITY.
   On Tuesday evening, Nov. 4th, 1834, at a meeting of the
 officers and classes of Transylvania University in the Medi-
 cal Hall, after a very eloquent and forcible  address by  Pro-
 fessor Charles Caldwell, on the subject of the Vice of
 Gambling,  it was Resolved, that measures  be immediately
 entered into with a view  to  the formation of an association
 against this prevalent  evil:  in pursuance of which, Profr.
 John E.  Cooke was called to the Chair, and Robert Peter
 appointed Secretary.
   It was  then, on motion  of  Profr. Wm. Richardson, unani-
 mously Resolved, that a Committee of seven be appointed to
 prepare a suitable code of regulations for an Anti-gambling
 Association of the Officers and  Members of Transylvania Univer-
 sity, to report at the earliest period; whereupon the following
 gentlemen  were appointed the Committee:
             Profr. L.P". YANDELL,
             RIDGLEY GREATHOUSE, of Ky.
             ROBT. N. MURPHY,        " Ala.
             JAMES P. BRIDGES,        " Miss.
             GEO. O. HILDRETH,       " Ohio.
             JOHN HURT,               " Va.
             ANDREW J.  WHITE,       « Tenn.
   At a subsequent meeting  held  pursuant  to adjournment,
a Committee composed of the following gentlemen:
             ALXR. M. KELLER,      of Ala.
             WM.  A.  WARE,          " Tenn.
            DAVID F. BLACKBURN, " Ky.
 was appointed to express to Profr. Caldwell the unanimous
thanks of the Faculties and  Classes of Transylvania Uni-
versity, for  his very eloquent  Address,  and to  request from 
                         (  36)
him a copy for immediate publication in pamphlet form; and
the Committee on subsequently reporting that they had wait-
ed on Profr. Caldwell, and that a copy of the Address had
been placed at their disposal, were, by resolution, enjoined,
Profr. Yandell  having  been  added  to  the  Committee, to
take  measures for its immediate publication.
  The Committee for drafting a code of regulations for the
government of the contemplated Anti-gambling Society, also
reported a  draft  of a Constitution,  which, after some slight
modifications was adopted, as follows:

                 CONSTITUTION
  OF THE ANTI-OAMBLING SOCIETY  OF TRANSYLVANIA UNIVERSITY.
  Whereas, Gambling.is a practice fraught with consequen-
ces the  most pernicious to society,  and the most  ruinous to
the property, morals and standing of individuals; and where-
as it  has become alarmingly prevalent,
  Resolved,  That it  is the duty of all  good citizens to give
their aid to its suppression.
  Resolved,  That, in furtherance of this design, we, Profess-
ors and pupils of Transylvania University, do form ourselves
into an  Anti-gambling Society, to be denominated and gov-
erned as follows:
  Article  1. It shall be  called th*e Anti-gambling Society
of Transylvania University.
   Art. '2.  Its officers  shall consist of a President, four Vice
Presidents, and a Secretary, to be chosen by the Society.
  Art. 3.  The  members of this  Society, on signing this
Constitution, pledge themselves to abstain from every species
of betting, and all kinds of games  of chance  for money or
property, and in every proper and honorable way to discour-
age and suppress the vice of gambling.
   Art. 4.  Any Officer, Professor or  Pupil of Transylvania
University may  become a member of this Society by signing
this Constitution, and may at  any  time withdraw from it on
application to the Secretary, but  shall be considered a mem-
ber until he withdraws or is expelled. 
                        ( 37 )
  Art. 5. The Society shall have the power of expelling
members for a violation of the pledge.
  Art. 6. There shall be a stated Annual Meeting on the
first Monday of every November, and  such  other meetingi
as the Society may deem necessary.
  The following gentlemen were then elected Officers of
the Society.
      ProVr. CHARLES CALDWELL, President.
      Burton Yandell,^
      J. H.  D. Rogers,
      C. A.  Jones,
      John Hurt,
      Robert Peter, Secretary.
  The number of Signatures obtained  was upwards of one
hundred  and twenty, but as all have not yet received a full
opportunity for signing it,  and as it is confidently believed
that no one will withhold his assistance from the good work,
many more will be added.
             By order of the Society,
                 CHARLES  CALDWELL, President.
   Robert. Peter, Secretary.
>Vice President!. 
 
\
=SSS=
AN  ADDRESS
                ON THE






VICE  OF GAMBLING,
BY CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D.
 
 
 
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