Madison Whig Advocate

For the Madison Whig Advocate.

Gambling.

There are few who are aware of the extent to which gambling is carried, and perhaps still fewer who reflect on the wide spread ruin it produces. In every community where this vice is tolerated, the fairest prospects of honour and usefulness are blasted in their opening blossom. He who shall unwittingly enter the polluted chamber where the gambler celebrates his unholy orgies, will too late discover that he has followed a deceitful guide, whose smiles lure only to the yawning abyss of destruction. At the gaming table, property and character are made dependent on the shuffling of a card, and the rattling of the dice: time is sacrificed, health destroyed, and money thrown away, until at length the miserable votary of folly seeks in the intoxicating bowl a temporary solace for the anguish of an accusing conscience.

The life of the professed gambler, is a series of outrages on all the principles which bind men together in the communion of social existence. It proposes to its votaries pleasure, no matter how obtained, whether by the destruction of the fond father's hope, or the overthrow of a mother's hallowed joy. I would say to the young men of Canton, beware of the gambling table; beware of that house in our village which has, with propriety, been denominated a hell. Shun it as you would the Bohon-Upas—for if you enter its unholy precincts, it will prove as detrimental to your character and your happiness, as the poisonous tree of Java would to health.

It is a matter of much congratulation, that the attention of our magistrates and other officers, is beginning to fasten on this subject, and that there seems to exist a disposition inimical to the blackleg fraternity. May it increase until this enormous evil shall be rooted out of the land.

A YOUTH.