[84] Extracts from a `leader' in the Standard of Sept. 4, 1869.



CHAPTER IX.

GAMBLING IN THE UNITED STATES.

It is not surprising that a people so intensely speculative,
excitable, and eager as the Americans, should be desperately
addicted to gambling. Indeed, the spirit of gambling has
incessantly pervaded all their operations, political, commercial,
and social.[85] It is but one of the manifestations of that
thorough license arrogated to itself by the nation, finding its
true expression in the American maxim recorded by Mr Hepworth
Dixon, so coarsely worded, but so significant,--`Every man
has a right to do what he _DAMNED_ pleases.'[86]


[85] In the American correspondence of the Morning Advertiser,
Feb. 6, 1868, the writer says:--`It was only yesterday (Jan. 24)
that an eminent American merchant of this city (New York) said,
in referring to the state of affairs--"we are socially,
politically, and commercially demoralized." '


[86] `Spiritual Wives.'--A work the extraordinary disclosures
of which tend to show that a similar spirit, destined, perhaps,