OCR Text |
Show 152 DESPOTiSM This vice, more dangerous a11d dreadful , if po!':sible, even than Urunkenness itself, is equally prevalent at the south. Many attempts have been made to eradicate it. 'I'here are pcn1.d laws against it, ln all the slave holding states. Of late, we have seen the summary process of Lynch Law applied to the same purpose. In Vu-:ksburgh, one of tile pnnc1pal towns in the state of Mississippi, the most respectable people of the place assembled in the mouth of July, 1835, and after pullmg down several bmldmgs used :is gambling houses, proceeded to seize the persons of five profcsswnal gamblers and to hang them on the spot without judge or jury. "These unfortunate men>' says the Louisiana Advertiser, "claimed to the last the privilege of American citizens,:-the trial by jnry,and professed themselves wJ!Img to submit to any thing their country would Je~ally inflict upon them; bJit we are sorry to say, thClr petJtJOn was in vain! The black musicians were ordered to strike up and the voices of the suppliants were drowned by th~ fife and drum. Mr. Riddell, the cashier of the Planter's Bank, ordered them to play Yankee Doodle, a tune which we believe has never been so prostituted before, and which we hope, and we trust will never be again. The unhappy suflerers frequently implored a drink of water, but were refused. * * * * The wife of one of them, half distracted at the cruel treatment an_d murder of her husband, trembling for her own safety, in tears begged permission to inter l1er husband's body,-but in vain. She was afterwards compelled to fly, with her orphan child, in an open skiff, for her personal security. rrhe same fate was threatened to any person wl10 should dare to cut down the bodies before the expiration of twenty-four hours. At eleven o'clock the next day, they were cut down and thrown together into a hole, which had been dng ncar the gallows, without coflins or any other preparations, except a box into which one of them was put." Of the persons who assisted at this execution tlierc IN Al\TERICA. 153 was not probably one, who was not himself in the constant habit of gamblin g. Yet is the horror of this vice so great in the southern states, and its ill effects, b_rought home to the public minrl by constant expc~ Jenc~ are so generally acknowledged, that th~ actors m th1s tragedy were never called to account before any judicial tribunal, and their conduct, throu ghout til~ entire south, was either openly approved, or very famtly c~n.demn cd. 'I'hc tone of reprobation in which the ~m~zs~ana Advertiser speaks, found but a slight and mdtstmct echo from the other southern priuts. . Yet notwithstanding all the horror, with which this VICP. of gambling is regarded, the indul~cnce in it) at least among the men, is next to universal. Among those who have been swept away by the prevailing current, may be reckoned some of the most able and distinguished of our southern and south-western orators and politicians, unable to withstand this any more than other popular sins. When such men lead, followers are always plenty. Every lit.tle village of the south has its race-course, its billiard room, its faro table, and its gambling house, and of the three latter, perhaps several. This grows out of the moral necesstty of things. l\1:en, in all ages, and jn every country, who have had much leisure on their hands, which they knew not how else to employ, have ever sought relief in some sort of gambling. It is so alw~ ys w1th savages, sailors and soldiers, and so it is With the idle population of the south. The habit ~nee acquired, it becomes almost impossible to resist lts seductions. 'ro reform a gambler is mnch the same difficult. task as to reform a drunkard. The planter who has been secluded upon his estate for a ":cek or a month, in irksome and wretched indolence, h1s heart all the time devonrinO' itself orders his horse or his carriage in a tit of desp~ratiOJ~, and sets out for the nearest village. The gaming table offers him the speediest and most certain means of excitement, the surest method of slial<ing off the listless misery which oppresses him. 'I'o the gaming table he goes. It |