In an office overlooking Trinity graveyard, in New York City, an
old man, past eighty, with a fortune of at least $50,000,000,
gambles every day with all the excitement of youth. The
fluctuations in his game bring to his sallow cheeks the color
that no other human emotion could bring there.
On his way home this old man passes crowds of children in the
streets and looks down, concerned and sorrowful, to find that
they, too, are gambling.
They are matching pennies or shaking dice.
* * *
Clergymen are startled and amazed to find that women are gambling
heavily.
They have gambled heavily ever since civilization has progressed
far enough to give them large sums to gamble with.
Marie Antoinette staked thousands of louis at a time at
Versailles.
She was so wrapped up in gambling she could not see that her neck
was in danger.
When the lava came down from Vesuvius it buried Pompeiians who
were gambling.
The men who dig up the old monuments in Africa find gambling
instruments crumbling away side by side with appliances for
taking human life.
* * *
Nowhere in the lower forms of animal life, so far as we know, is
there the slightest indication of the gambling instinct.
The monkey, the elephant, love whiskey, and easily become
drunkards.
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