A man has a right to commit suicide, so far as propriety is concerned. If he does not owe any thing, and feels it in his conscience that he would like to die, he has a right to do so--but if that man owes five dollars, he would certainly violate a moral principle by killing himself, because he ought to live as long as he can to pay his debt. The speaker once knew a man, in good circumstances, who was weary of existence, and feeling disposed to take a journey to "that bourne whence no traveller returns," committed suicide. There may be many who would call it murder--but the community are murderers--they sometimes murder in cold blood. But lately a man was taken to the gallows, and they hung a young man because he had killed somebody else, and yet there are many persons who believe this is right, and that suicide, such as the speaker had selected, is wrong.
The speaker now proceeded to criticize the law relative to gambling, passed at the recent legislature, in which he said that if a man has a fixed place of residence and carries on a dry goods business, he might gamble as much as should please him and the law would not take hold of him. He would ask anybody to read the law understandingly and then deny this round assertion. This act, said he, is bugbear--it is a disgrace as it now stands, for it smacks of cowardice. The legislators, he presumed, had a little sense, and they knew that some kind of a law must be passed, and they were ingenious enough to know how to frame it to sound well, and yet be comparatively powerless. They knew by such a statute that _nolle prosequis_ could be entered--and solicitors make more money--they well knew that there were many religious people among their constituents, and it would not do for them to act singular, or else they would find so short an account at the next ballot-box that they would not be sent back. He would spurn such legislators and keep them for ever in private life. (Applause.)
In conclusion, he said that he was decidedly an anti-gambler, and he did not defend the subject morally. In order that he might enlighten the people on the subject of gambling, he would give one lecture, in which he would relate his experience, and promised that it should be the richest and most interesting thing that could be listened to. He did not want money. He would only ask enough to pay expenses of the room--the ladies and the reverend clergy may come in gratis--all he wished was that the truth should be told about gambling.