would not attempt to disguise his real feelings from his hearers, and
the gratification he experienced in having the opportunity of speaking,
for once in his life, to an audience composed of men of intelligence and
integrity. He well knew the difficulties under which he laboured, being
unused to speaking in public, and surrounded as he was in the community
by the reverend gentlemen and the press, who were avowedly opposed to
him, and who had thrown their bomb-shells and Congreve rockets liberally
at the gambling fraternity, without mercy, but he regarded these weapons
as harmless, for they had fallen at his feet without inflicting a single
wound.

Mr. F. then turned to the consideration of the laws making gambling a
penal offence, and particularly referred to the act of Assembly passed
by the last legislature, which he denounced as unjust and impolitic. He
did not appear for the purpose of defending gambling, but to speak a
word in favour of those who had been represented to be the worst
members of society, and against whom the voice of proscription had been
raised. He contended that a man had a constitutional right to do what he
pleased with that which was legally his own property, and all laws
passed to abridge that right ought to receive public reprehension.

He was at a loss to understand why Mr. Green should have taken so active
a part in the passage of the law at Harrisburg. It had been said that
gambling must be checked, and in order to put it down, you must make it
a penitentiary offence. He regarded this as an egregious error.
Gambling, he was convinced, ought to be treated in the same manner as
Intemperance--by moral suasion--and not by passing a law that puts a man
in the penitentiary for exercising a legal right. But there were fewer
gamblers than drunkards, and the former had no influence at the
ballot-box.

He denied the statements of Mr. Green, that young men had been enticed
to gambling-houses. They invariably went there of their own accord, and
he related instances in which the relatives and friends of young men
were called upon by gamblers, to exercise proper authority in
restraining them from visiting such places.

He alluded to the excessive penalty attached to the law, and argued that
it would never be enforced, there being no inducement for the police to
detect the offenders; and that from the face of the law is shown, that
it was not made for the punishment of wealthy gamblers, but the poor
i