IN GAMBLING ON THE INCREASE?

Bush Advocate, Volume VII, Issue 475, 30 May 1891, Page 7

IN GAMBLING ON THE INCREASE?

6 (LONDON SPECTATOR, __BE_A_Y. 14.) i Tho scandal whioh has filled so promiuenl * a place in our newspapers during the pasl * ' week, has led one of our ablest contem--1 'porariea to a most lugubrious estimate of the 3 j condition of our sooial morality, which ie 1 J declared to be rapidly degenerating into that _ |of a sooiety given up to gambling. We 3 ' believe this to be as great a mistake as it 3 would be to assert thafc, because the newst papers were full for some weeks of the * Kentish Town murder, and for other weeks of fc a great Liverpool poisoning case, the lower > and upper strata of the middle class are rapidly ! sinking into habits of deliberate murder. ' It is always the most difficult thing in theworld to compare the prevalence of J any kind of evil or crime in Buch a century as our 3, with the prevalence of the same , evil or crime in a comparatively undoi veloped period, if only because we hear , so much more of ifc in days of cheap newsi papers and cheap telegrams than we could ■ possibly have heard in days when news--1 papers were few and telegrams had nofc even been conceived. Ifc is as easy to com--1 pare latent heat with heat regisfceredby the 1 thermometer, or the wealth of a mine that ' has never been opened with the wealth of a mine thafc is in full working order, as to oom- . pare the __6raUty of society in a day when there were hardly any accurate records of ' sooial mischiefs with that of a day like our own, when every scandal is refleoted back and magnified from the narrative of scores of : journalists and not a few formal interviewers. 1 We admit freely that to some extent the minute ouriosity of modern journalism not only magnifies fche apparent exitent of any evil, but increases its absolute dimensions, because ifc multiplies enormously the mischief of evil example, and gives a tone of unconcern and inatter-of-factness to the language in which ifc is discussed that cannot but tend to lower the repulsion with whioh it is regarded. On the other hand, it also I lowers the air of false romance which was apt to envelop the evil example while it remained a half-secret monopoly of rank and wealth, and bestows on it an effect of commonness which robs ifc of half its fascination. We must weigh the one class of effeots against the other, and we shall probably conclude that while the knowledge of evil has gained upon tbo knowledge of good, while all strata of society have become more homogeneous, more like each other as well in vices as in virtues, evil itself has nofc gained upon good, but rather lost ground in consequence of the publicity which ifc is obliged to face. Charles James Fox could never have gambled as he did and yet remained .he head of the Liberal party, in a day like oura. Even the gambling feats of Mr. Disraeli's more or less imaginary "Young Duke" would in our day have certainly got into the newspapers, and brought down the Daily Telegraph upon him and his associates. We have within the lasfc few years had the most convincing evidence that kinds of immorality which would never have disqualified a politician from public lifo in the old days, disqualify one now ; and unques tionably the imputation of habitual gambling, especially where there is a rumour, true or false, that ifc had led to the scandal of foul play, would extinguish even a loading statesman now. This, of course, involves a great deal more serious discouragement to such vices than ifc would at first sight seem to involve. For political danger and disgrace carry a great deal more of worldly penalty with them than they did in the days before democracy. A slur ia put upon any one whom tho democracy will not or oannot employ as their representative, which ifc had never before been in the power of any social caste to impose. , .. We hold that those who regard the morality of society aa going eteadily downward, confuaetwo very different things— the greater assimilation between the vices of the rich and the poor, and the greater intensity of those vices themselves. It is true, we think, that both ia England and America, gambling, and fche vices which almost always accompany gambling, are sinking lower in the social scale, and are now much commoner amongst the lower - middle olass and tbe poor than they were. You hear of Stock Exchange gambling as a common vice amongafcdomestio servants m the United States, and of hotting on races as becoming popular here among boys who carry tolegrams or run errands. But that only proves that these vices have taken the place of lower or even worse vices, such as common stealing and pocket-picking, which have simultaneously very muoh diminished. It would be as false to argue that because gambling, and the dishonesty which so often accompanies ifc, have spread to the lower classes, the whole state of society is worse on that account, as it would be to argue that because a certain limited amount of intelligence and education now pervades the vices of our timo, the whole state of society ia better on that account. What seems to be the truth is, that there is a greater measure of uniformity than there ever was both in the intellectual and in the moral condition of the different ranks and classes. There is more sentiment and sentimentalise in the upper classes ; there is less violence in tho lower classes. There aro more petty excitements for the poor; there are fewer orgies of high excitement for the rich. "Society," technically so called, has abandoned ita cock -fighting-, prize-fighting, dueling, and even its worst delirium of gambling; while the lower classes have borrowed from it a good deal of its sensational reading, ita love of chance gains and chance losses, its interest in grandiose scandals, its delights in gossip, and in glare. The characteristic of the present day hps been the diffusion of both the greater intelligence, and of the greater frivolity which has been not unfrequently one of the consequences of that greater intelligence, amongst all classes, and at tho same time, of that half- superstitious awe of public opinion which has made the rich defer to tho disapprobation of the multitude, and the multitude catch a little of the fastidiousness of the rich. There is one unpleasant feature of tbo prosent era on which our contemporary dwells which seems to us to support our general conclusion rather than that at which the Standard of Wednesday arrived— we moan the share taken by women in the gambling of to-day. Wo do nofc know why our contemporary treats this as distinguishing our modern gambling from tho gambling of our forefathers, for nothing is more remarkable in the sooial gossip of tbe last century than tbe high gambling in which tho ladies of the upper ten thousand took an unblushing part. Nothing is more notorious than the devotion of the womon of tho highest class in Pope's and Swift's time to the gambling-tables. Thoir satires are full of it. Thackeray, in his "Four Georges," declares that the gambling of high society was one of its regular institutions. "When we try to recall social England," he says, " we must fancy ifc pla«. ing at cards for many hours every day." If Thackeray cau be trusted, even the "Nonconformist conscience" was nofc then bo averse to moderate gambling as it is now. " Even tho Nonconformist clergy," bo writes, "looked not unkindly on the practice. ' I do not think,' says one of thorn, ' that honest Martin Luther committed sin by playing backgammon for an hour or two after dinnor, in order, by unbending his mind, to promote digestion,' As for the High Church parsons, they all played, Bishops and all. On Twelfth Day, tho Court used to play in State. ' This being Twelfth Day, his Majesty the Prince of Wales and the Knights Companions of the Garter, Thistle, and Bath appeared in the collars of their respective orders. Their Majesties, the Prince of Wales, and three eldest Princesses went to the Chapel Royal, preceded by tho heralds. The Duke of Manchester carried the sword of State. The King and Prince mado offering at the altar of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, according to the annual custom. At night their Majesties played at hazard with the nobility for tho Benefit of the groom-porter, and 'twas said the King won 600 guineas ; the Queen, 360 ; Princess Amelia, 20 ; Princess Caroline, 10 ; the Duke of Grafton and the Earl of Portmore, several thousands.' " That was in George ll. 's reign. But we are much mis-

taken if the ladies in high society did no* gamble equally under George IV. We do not know that the following incident waa brought to light, as the recent scandal (whether truly or falsely) was said to be, by t women's eyes, bufc ifc is certainly not unfc likely — " A peer of the realm was found • cheating at whist, and repeatedly seen to 3 practice the triok called saulcr la coupe. Hia i friends at the club saw him cheat, and i went on playing with him. One greeni horn, who had discovered his foul play, ; asked an old hand what he should do. * Do !' said tho Mammon of Unrighteousness. i ' Back him, you fool.' The best efforts were 1 made to screen him. People wrote him anonymous letters and warned him, bufc he would cheat, and they were obliged to find bim out." AU this does not look as if our days were so very different from those of our great grandfathers. Of course it is natural that fche women of the present day should take more part in men's amusements, both desirable and undesirable, than they did, except in the highest circles of high society, a few generations ago, because the whole drift of modern society has been favourable to the relaxation of the Bfcricter rules under which the lives of women of the professional classes at all events, were lived 50 or 60 years ago. Both for good and for evil, women live more like men of the same class in life than they did in the times of our grandfathers ; but thafc is no proof that on the whole society is deteriorating. , It only shows that it is deterioating in aspects in which it ia undeaireable th afc there should be any such assimilation between the lives of women and men, and improving in aspects in which ,ifc ia desirable that there should be suoh assimilation. And, on the whole, we do nofc doubt in the least that the gambling of the present generation ia less dangerous and less common in the highest circles than ifc has been in previous centuries, though the taste has now spread to classes which a few generations ago would have preferred highway robbery or burglary or elaborate conspiracies to defraud, to mere gambling. We believe thafc society is, on the whole, improving, and not deteriorating, though there is now so much more publicity given to what is wrong, that we hear a good deal more aboufc ifc in the newspapers than our grandfathers and grandmothers ever did.