THE IMMORALITY OF GAMBLING.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR SIR,—In your article of this day ou " Gamblers and Suicides," you ask wherein lies the difference between risking money on the turn of a card and risking it on the chance of a rise in the price of corn ; adding that the latter act is admittedly moral, and of the essence of commerce, and that we rather feel that the former action is wrong somehow, than are able to say why it is wrong. Let me remark, in the first place, that it is only in very modern times that your qualification of the forestaller acorn as acting morally would have been admitted. He was looked on as a public enemy by both Church and State, point- ing the moral of countless sermons and punishable by numerous laws. It is to political economy, which has taught us that he is, in truth (whatever his private motive may be), a public bene- factor by storing up a reserve of supply in preparation for a time of great scarcity, that he owes his present good repu- tation.
But the real difference between him and the mere gambler is that he proposes to give the person or persons dealing with him an equivalent for their money. His corn is fully worth to them what they are willing to pay for it ; and so they get value for cash. But the essence of gambling is that the gambler en-
deavours to get possession of the money of those who have transactions with him without giving any equivalent for it at all; and he is thus measurably near the level of the highway- man, startling as such a comparison may seem at the first glance. The apparent reply that he risks his own money does not meet the objection, proving no more than that both players are on the same level of motive and conduct. So does an habitual duellist risk his own life ; but yet people now-a-days feel that the line which divides him from the common bravo is a very narrow one, and that he has no claim to be ranked with the soldier who may have killed far more people in war-time.— I am, Sir, &c., RICHARD F. LITTLEDA.LE. 9 Bed Lion Square, W.C., July 5th.
[Does the gambler offer nothing ? On the contrary, he sells a possibility of large winnings.—En. Spectator.]
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