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In the Common Council they were giving away street-railway franchises; gambling-dens flourished undisturbed, and saloons closed only when some member of the saloon-keeper's family died. The anti-gambling league had succeeded in suppressing the slot machines for a fortnight; this was the only triumph virtue could mark down for herself.
And even the Anti-Gambling League has no word to say against those great gambling concerns, Life and Fire Assurance Societies, which bet you that you will not die or be burnt out within a certain number of years, or those journals which offer you large odds that you won't be smashed up while reading them.
The Anti-Gambling League, for all its recent prospectus, will not put down gambling among the poorer classes, except by widening their outlook otherwise, by creating other interests outside the dull daily groove. For the well-to-do classes there is less excuse. With all the arts and amenities of life at their command, it is degrading to use up time and nervous energy in so brainless a pursuit.
And the beauty of gambling is that you cannot lose. Gambling is really a disguised system of purchase. One buys excitement, a most valuable emotion, for which even the members of the Anti-Gambling League are prepared to pay heavily in other forms!
No one intended to leave Martha alone that afternoon, but it happened that everyone was called away, for one reason or another. Mrs. McFarland was attending the weekly card party held by the Women's Anti-Gambling League. Sister Nell's young man had called quite unexpectedly to take her for a long drive. Papa was at the office, as usual. It was Mary Ann's day out.
Gas Gordon was to be on the platform at the poor people's treat. As he walked down Trafalgar Road his eye caught a still-exposed fragment of a decayed bill on a hoarding. It referred to a meeting of the local branch of the Anti-Gambling League a year ago in the lecture-hall of the Wesleyan Chapel, and it said that Councillor Gordon would occupy the chair on that occasion.
I remember thinking, long before I came to the United States, at the time when the anti-gambling bill was a leading topic of American correspondence in European newspapers, that a State whose public opinion would allow even the discussion of a regulation so drastic could not possibly regard "sport" as sport is regarded in Europe.
But I'm thinking that it wasn't to hear my opinion on the Christian religion that your lordship came here the day." McMunn, besides being a teetotaller, and opposed to the smoking of tobacco, was the president of a Young Men's Anti-Gambling League. He was, therefore, in a position to throw valuable light on the Christian religion.
This being definitely settled, I soon demonstrated to the young fellow that his case, as regarded other liabilities, was by no means desperate; and his elastic temperament asserted itself at once. I may add, in passing, that he has never broken his anti-gambling pledge; also, that my £50 remains unpaid to this day. "Now I must go and catch my horses," said I. "Can you come?"
For many years Steele ran a consultation on the Melbourne Cup which was well patronised, until the anti-gambling legislation, which drove Adams from Queensland, suppressed it, but did not stamp out gambling. I arranged a partnership with Mr. W. M. Campbell, traveller for Stewart and Hemmant, of Brisbane. He and his wife and family were settled in Fitzmaurice's house by the end of this year.
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