And here the same avaricious spirit fastened upon them, and, with its cruel talons, clawed them, as it were, to its own purposes, not caring how much these little instruments of cheerfulness in human disease were converted into instruments for the extension of human pain.
In the same manner as the spirit of gaming has seized upon these different institutions and amusements of antiquity, and turned them from their original to new and destructive uses, so there is no certainty, that it will not seize upon others, which may have been innocently resorted to, and prostitute them equally with the former.

The mere prohibition of particular amusements, even if it could be enforced, would be no cure for the evil.

The brain of man is fertile enough, as fast as one custom is prohibited, to fix upon another.

And if all the games, now in use, were forbidden, it would be still fertile enough to invent others for the same purposes.

The bird that flies in the air, and the snail, that crawls upon the ground, have not escaped the notice of the gamester, but have been made, each of them, subservient to his pursuits.