The Increase of Card Playing
“SOME idea of the extent to which card playing is carried in this country,” says the Pittsburg Christian Advocate, “may be formed by noting the number of cards manufactured. Under the Spanish war internal revenue tax law a tax of two cents was laid on each pack of cards manufactured in the United States. The revenue from this source amounted to about $1,000 for every working-day in the year. It is said that each pack consists of fifty-two cards,—on this point this deponent saith not,—and that the number of packs on which revenue was paid was fifteen millions. Congress fixed the size of the pack at fifty-four, and thus the whole number of cards manufactured was seven hundred and eighty millions. This is enormous. The total revenue derived from this source was $300,000 annually. To this sum Ohio contributed $140,000, New York $90,000, and Michigan and Illinois $40,000 each. The four States named have almost a monopoly of the card-manufacturing business.” A contributor to the same journal touches on the same point by saying:— One of the prominent hindrances to the conspicuous spiritual success of many of our churches is the alarming increase of card playing among our most influential members. During the last ten years there has been a steady enlargement in the number of Methodist families patronizing card parties and maintaining card tables in their own residences. Especially is this true among the communicants who regard themselves as “society” people. But in this statement there is a slight mistake. The card playing among church-members is not so much a hindrance to spiritual success as an evidence of the previous loss of spirituality in the churches. These are the days spoken of by Paul (2 Tim. 3:1-5), when men have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof.