OA MING & GA>fBUVO. ' - 261 



the regulating of it would seem to lie the only mode 

 of softening its attendant evils. To put, then, the 

 spirit of gaming under a high pressure iu one direc- 

 tion, will force it more violently out at some other 

 vent. 



If the British legislator has been as yet baffled in 

 his attempts to abolish dram-drinking, ought it in n ,i- 

 son to be expected that in one of its colonies like this, 

 legislation should be found more easy, in regard ti> 

 gambling- and £ a mine ? It might he argued on 

 plausible, and perhaps tenable grounds, and as the 

 converse of, or corollary to, the "greatest happiness 

 principle/* that it is not only the business of legisla- 

 tion to increase the sum total of human happines-i, 

 but to reduce, regardless of prejudice and mistimed 

 impractical morality, the sum total of those lesser 

 evils, which, although not amounting to actual crimes 

 iu themselves, do, in their aggregate or individual 

 results, inevitably lend to diminish greatly the total 

 amount of the happiness and comlurts of the human 

 race. 



But if gaming cannot be repressed entirely, there is 

 probably much truth iu the argument, that by mo- 

 derating and regulating it iu its eccentric course by 

 legislative enactments, an equal, if not a greater, be- 

 nefit would accrue to society, than has been gained 

 by regulating dram-drinking. 



The Temperance Societies would confer perhaps a 

 less doubtful benefit on society, than that they are 

 now aiming at, could they successfully grapple with 

 mental as well as physical cravings, and reclaim the 

 gamester from hi* ruinous course. 



The legislature does not say to the dram-drinker, 

 that a gin-shop is a pleasant, or reputable, or desir- 

 able place of resort. On the contrary, it brands by 

 various enactments of law, the drunkard as one de- 



