The National Republican And Ohio Political Register

From the Woodstock Observer.

GAMING.

There is no species of vice that is fraught with so many evils as Gaming. It is a vice that at once degrades man below the beasts that perish, and renders his existence obnoxious to himself. It rouses the malignant passions, and renders every step the gambler takes a step of thorns. It is a vice which is hateful in the sight of God. The gambler is despised by all respectable men and spurned from their society. Finding himself in this situation, he gives vent to all species of wickedness; he is always to be found in the haunts of vice and dissipation; he plunges himself deep into intemperance, and, not content with his own ruin, effects that of his family. The tears of his wife, and the supplications of his children, who are clinging to his knees for protection and support, are alike unheeded. He beholds them starving, but his breast is shut to pity. He will even snatch from them (if I may be allowed the expression,) their last penny, to gratify his own inordinate lust for "gaming." Driven at last to perpetrate some horrible crime he either ends his miserable life upon a gallows, or stung with remorse puts an end to his own existence I, (young as I am) have seen the gambler "hung upon a tree." I too have entered the abode of this wretched being, and the sight was too much for me--nothing but misery abode there. His children, half naked and starved, having lost the protector who was bound by natural ties to guard them against the approach of misery, were obliged to throw themselves upon the mercy of strangers. No man of rational feelings could look upon this without his blood being almost congealed in his veins.

One would think that the numerous examples which have been furnished of the effects of gaming, would have a tendency to lead those who cling to this worst of vices, to see the error of their ways, and cause them to seek the right path. But alas! it is not so, the warning voice is unheeded. They travel on in the pursuit of vice, and ere long will fall over the same precipice with those who have pursued the same pernicious course before them. It is strange, living as we do, in a "land of gospel light and liberty," that such things should be tolerated. But gamblers set at defiance all laws, both human and divine.

It is true that there is a law in this State and in other states against gambling, but if no one appears to put this law in force, of what avail is it? The fear of injuring the feelings of a neighbor, or incurring the censure of some few in society, ought not to prevent any man from doing his best to suppress a vice which is so destructive to the common wealth. It is a subject which claims the attention of every member of community, and, unless immediately attended to, will overrun us, and wickedness will hold the sway. I hope the people will awake to a sense of their danger and if they cannot suppress these acts, at least cause the authors to hide their heads among the "rocks and caverns of the mountain," until they feel disposed to travel the path of virtue.

M.