A Gambling Hell | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 24, 1867

A Gambling Hell.

REV. T. L. CUYLER gives a brief glimpse of one of the notorious John Morrissey's manufactories of lost souls. Sure, the people who “delight to honor” such a man are only fit for treason, stratagems and spoils”—and New York riots.

I looked in for a few moments one evening (as did several other clergymen) upon the scenes in Morrissey's celebrated club-house. The door stood open to all comers, and a sumptuous supper-table was provided for the patrons of the games. It was a most suggestive place to furnish materials for a sermon. The rooms were elegantly furnished—the gentlemen present were fashionably dressed—and the burly prize-fighter, who fitly represents the “democracy” of New York tenement houses, presided quite courteously over the hospitalities of his gambling “hell.” In one brilliantly-lighted room stood a roulette table. In another were piles of ivory cards and dominoes, and a large iron safe, in which have been swallowed up the thousands which moustached fools and reckless husbands have flung down on the adjoining tables. As at Baden-Baden, the gambling was conducted with perfect silence. Each gamester gave his whole attention to the absorbing game. Large piles of greenbacks changed hands rapidly. Men who at home occupy “respectable” positions were to be seen at some of the tables. But behind the groups seemed to leer the satanic arch-gamist, who was luring them on to stake conscience for gold, and knew that he was sure to cheat them out of their souls. Oh! It was an accursed place; and I was glad to escape soon and unobserved. Let those who are advocating the use of cards as an “innocent amusement” look in for a few moments on such a moral slaughter-house as is opened here by a member of our national Congress, and they will see what a hell-fire of passion can be kindled in human breasts by a pack of cards. From the terrible thralldom of the gaming table few victims ever escape. The door to the gambling-room seldom opens but one way. In view of the subtle seductions and fascinations of games of chance, I firmly believe that total abstinence is the only safe principle.