Indeed, one conjecture is, that gaming was
invented by the Lydians when under the pressure of a great
famine; to divert themselves from their sufferings they contrived
dice, balls, tables, &c. This seems, however, rather a bad joke.
The afflicted Job asks--'Can a man fill his belly with the east
wind?' And we can imagine that plenty of tobacco to smoke and
'chaw' would mitigate the pangs of starvation to an army in the
field, as has been seriously suggested; but you might just as
well present a soldier with a stone instead of bread, as invite
him to amuse himself with dice, or anything else, to assuage the
pangs of hunger.
Be that as it may, time soon matured this instrument of
recreation into an engine of destruction; and the intended
palliative of care and labour has proved the fostering nurse of
innumerable evils. This diminutive cube has usurped a tyranny
over mankind for more than two thousand years, and continues at
this day to rule the world with despotic sway-- levelling all
distinctions of fortune in an instant by the fiat of its single
turn.
The use of dice was probably brought into this island by the
Romans, if not before known; it became more frequent in the times
of our Saxon ancestry, and has prevailed with almost unimpaired
vigour from those days to our own.
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