Manners Of The Slavocracy--Gambling

That gambling prevails to a very great cxtent among slaveholders. is knovvn to every intelligent person. All the Southern newspapers contain perpetual allusions to it. But it may not be amiss to examine a few instances, which will illústrate its effects on Southern society. The vices are of a social nature. They are all ofafamily. They keep each other in countenance. Opulence and idleness constiiute a hotbed out of which every vice springs spontaneously and grows luxurinntly. Gambling has always been habitual with slaveholders. Says Morse in a work published many years since, "Teniperance and industry have not been reckoned among the virtues of the JN'orth Carolinians. The time which they wasted in idling. drinking, and gavibling, left tbem very little opportuniiy to improve their plantations, or their minds." Again he says, "the citizens of North Carolina were fonnerly in thé habit of spending their time in drinking, or gaviing at ctirds and dice, m cockiihting, or horse racing." Á description of a beautilul state of society! Betting on horses, on cock-fights and on elcctions, is so comnion we need scurcely enumérate these ways of venturing money. The iollowing Is from a late Philadelphia paper! llctüng. - It is now curren tly reported at Washington that carrier pigeoTis weke sent off from the Unoin course, immedjately ater the ra 3e between Fashion add Boston. VVhether such was the factor not, it is certain that long before the news could reach the seat of government by ordinary channels. some pretty extensive operations were made on the race. .No less than $1,500 were picked up by one party in th.j little city of Georgetown, wlule the citizens of Alexandria BufTered some.' - Spirit of the Times. We cut the following from an exchange paper: -Gaming and Stubbing. - We Iearn that on the week iwo men namecl H. T. Harria and Joseph Selnian, of New Port, Kentneky, feil out at a gatning house; Selman called Harris a ]a,r; Harris told him not to say that again, when lic instantly called him ad - n liar; Harris rosei'rom the table, drew a bowie knife - Selman run Harris overtook him and stabbed him in the lower part of the back near the spine. Harris resisted the authorities two hours, with nis back against. a wall, with a bowie knife in one hand andapistol in the other. He afteiwards gave himself up and was held to bail in the sum ol $800, but is iiow among the missing. Selman is not expected to survive. What n lesson to people is here exhibited. Shun such places as you would a Lion's den. How naturally these points are associated in one short story - gaming house- pistols - bowie knifi - death-baii given, and run away! Gerrit Smith's Tennessee Correspondent writes,April 16, I6i2; ' 'At the last three terni3 oí the Circuit Court, which has three sessions mnually, there were over one hundrei conviction for gambling, a conviction in every case ried. but one. About twenty convictions lor reailing ardent spirits. The fines ibr gambling wcre from ten to fifty dollars each. For retailing spirits, fines from ten to thirty dollars, costs aboutthe same as in gambling cases." Do notsucl facts indícate the state of society very plainly] One Imndrcd legal convictions, for gambling, in one county, during one year! Ji the gamblers were equally numerous in othercouniies, and received equal justice, there would be several ihousand convictions in the State every year. Again, if the law actually took cognizance of 100 cnses per year, in one county, liow many thousand cases must have occurred jn ihesame county. during the same time, which the lawnever reached! Betting on crops is another method of gambling coiumonly practiccd. Phílimon Bliss, a lawer of Elyria. Ohio, who formerJy resided in Florida, thus spcaks of it. "The desiro to make alarge erop is increased by that spirit of gambling so common at the South. It is venj common to bet on the issue of a erop. A. laysa wager that from a given number of hands he will make more cotton than B.- The wager is accepted, and then begins the' test: and who beurs the burden of t? How many tear3, yen, how ma:iy bro'ion constitutionl and premature cioaths have been the efToct of this spirit? F rom the despernie eneigy of purpose with wlu'ch the gambler pursnes his object, froni the passions which tbe practice calfs into exerc8ej we might conjeciure many. Such is the fact. In Middle Florida, a broken vtinded negro is more common than a broken xcindcd horse; though usually, when they are declarcd unsound. or when their constituiionis so broken that their recovery is despaired of, they aro exponed to New Orlcnns, to drag out the remainder of their days in the cotton field and suganr honses. J would not insinúate thar all planters gainble upon their crops: but I mention the practice as one of the common inducement to 'push niggers "