University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER XIII.
THE LOTTERIES AND THEIR BEWILDERMENTS.

IF we are to believe Pére Menestrier, the institution of Lotteries is to be found in the Bible, in the words — `The lot causeth contentions to cease, and parteth between the mighty,' Prov. xviii. 18. Be that as it may, it is certain that lotteries were in use among the ancient Romans, taking place during the Saturnalia, or festivities in honour of the god Saturn, when those who took part in them received a numbered ticket, which entitled the bearer to a prize. During the reign of Augustus the thing became a means of gratifying the cupidity of his courtiers; and Nero used it as the method of distributing his gifts to the people, — granting as many as a thousand tickets a day, some of them entitling the bearers to slaves, ships, houses, and

lands. Domitian compelled the senators and knights to participate in the lotteries, in order to debase them; and Heliogabalus, in his fantastic festivities, distributed tickets which entitled the bearers to camels, flies, and other odd things suggested by his madness. In all this, however, the distinctive character of modern lotteries was totally absent: the tickets were always gratuitous; so that if the people did not win anything, they never lost.

In the Middle Ages the same practice prevailed at the banquets of feudal princes, who apportioned their presents economically, and without the fear of exciting jealousy among the recipients, by granting lottery tickets indiscriminately to their friends. The practice afterwards descended to the merchants; and in Italy, during the 16th century, it became a favourite mode of disposing of their wares.

The application of lotteries by paid tickets to the service of the state is said to have originated at Florence, under the name of `Lotto,' in 1530; others say at Genoa, under the following circumstances: — It had long been customary in the latter city to choose annually, by ballot, five members of the Senate (composed of 90 persons) in order to

form a particular council. Some persons took this opportunity of laying bets that the lot would fall on such or such senators. The government, seeing with what eagerness the people interested themselves in these bets, conceived the idea of establishing a lottery on the same principle, which was attended with such great success, that all the cities of Italy wished to participate in it, and sent large sums of money to Genoa for that purpose.

To increase the revenues of the Church, the Pope also was induced to establish a lottery at Rome; the inhabitants of which place became so fond of this species of gambling, that they often deprived themselves and their families of the necessaries of life, that they might have money to lay out in this speculation.

The French borrowed the idea from the Italians. In the year 1520, under Francis I., lotteries were permitted by edict under the name of Blanques, from the Italian bianca carta, `white tickets,' — because all the losing tickets were considered blanks; — hence the introduction of the word into common talk, with a similar meaning. From the year 1539 the state derived a revenue from the lotteries, although from 1563 to 1609 the French

parliament repeatedly endeavoured to suppress them as social evils. At the marriage of Louis XIV. a lottery was organized to distribute the royal presents to the people — after the fashion of the Roman emperor. Lotteries were multiplied during this reign and that of Louis XV. In 1776 the Royal Lottery of France was established. This was abolished in 1793, re-established at the commencement of the Republic; but finally all lotteries were prohibited by law in 1836, — excepting `for benevolent purposes.' One of the most remarkable of these lotteries `for benevolent purposes' was the `Lottery of the Gold Lingots,' authorized in 1849, to favour emigration to California. In this lottery the grand prize was a lingot of gold valued at about £1700.

The old French lottery consisted of 90 numbers, that is, from No. 1 to No. 90, and the drawing was five numbers at a time. Five wheels were established at Paris, Lyons, Strasbourg, Bordeaus, and Lille. A drawing took place every ten days at each city. The exit of a single number was called extrait, and it won 15 times the amount deposited, and 70 times if the number was determined; the exit of two numbers was called the

ambe, winning 270 times the deposit, and 5100 times if the number was determined; — the exit of three numbers was called the terne, winning 5500 times; the quaterne, or exit of four numbers, won 75,000 times the deposit. In all this, however, the chances were greatly in favour of the state banker; — in the extrait the chances were 18 to 15 in his favour, vastly increasing, of course, in the remainder; thus in the ambe it was 1602 against 270; and so on.

The first English lottery mentioned in history was drawn in the year 1569. It consisted of 400,000 lots, at 10s. each lot. The prizes were plate; and the profits were to go towards repairing the havens or ports of this kingdom. It was drawn at the west door of St Paul's Cathedral. The drawing began on the 10th of January, 1569, and continued incessantly, *day and night, till the 6th of May following.[146] Another lottery was held at the same place in 1612, King James having permitted it in favour of `the plantation of English colonies in Virginia.' One Thomas Sharplys, a tailor of London, won the chief prize, which was `4000 crowns in fair plate.'

In 1680, a lottery was granted to supply London with water. At the end of the 17th century, the government being in want of money to carry on the war, resorted to a lottery, and £1,200,000 was set apart or *named for the purpose. The tickets were all disposed of in less than six months, friends and enemies joining in the speculation. It was a great success; and when right-minded people murmured at the impropriety of the thing, they were told to hold their tongues, and assured that this lottery was the very queen of lotteries, and that it had just taken Namur![147]

At the same time the Dutch gave in to the infatuation with the utmost enthusiasm; lotteries were established all over Holland; and learned professors and ministers of the gospel spoke of nothing else but the lottery to their pupils and hearers.

From this time forward the spirit of gambling increased so rapidly and grew so strong in England, that in the reign of Queen Anne private lotteries had to be suppressed as public nuisances.

The first parliamentary lottery was instituted in

1709, and from this period till 1824 the passing of a lottery bill was in the programme of every session. Up to the close of the 18th century the prizes were generally paid in the form of terminable, and sometimes of perpetual, annuities. Loans were also raised by granting a bonus of lottery tickets to all who subscribed a certain amount.

This gambling of annuities, despite the restrictions of an act passed in 1793, soon led to an appalling amount of vice and misery; and in 1808, a committee of the House of Commons urged the suppression of this ruinous mode of filling the national exchequer. The last public lottery in Great Britain was drawn in October, 1826.

The lotteries exerted a most baneful influence on trade, by relaxing the sinews of industry and fostering the destructive spirit of gaming among all orders of men. Nor was that all. The stream of this evil was immensely swelled and polluted, in open defiance of the law, by a set of artful and designing men, who were ever on the watch to allure and draw in the ignorant and unwary by the various modes and artifices of `insurance,' which were all most flagrant and gross impositions on the public, as well as a direct violation of the law. One of

the most common and notorious of these schemes was the insuring of numbers for the next day's drawing, at a *premium which (if legal) was much greater than adequate to the risk. Thus, in 1778, when the just premium of the lottery was only 7s. 6d., the office-keepers charged 9s., which was a certain gain of nearly 30 per cent.; and they aggravated the fraud as the drawing advanced.

On the sixteenth day of drawing the just premium was not quite 20s., whereas the office-keepers charged £1 4s. 6d., which clearly shows the great disadvantage that every person laboured under who was imprudent enough to be concerned in the insurance of numbers.[148]

In every country where lotteries were in operation numbers were ruined at the close of each drawing, and of these not a few sought an oblivion of their folly ill self-murder — by the rope, the razor, or the river.

A more than usual number of adventurers were said to have been ruined in the lottery of 1788, owing to the several prizes continuing long in the wheel (which gave occasion to much gambling), and also to the desperate state of certain branches

of trade, caused by numerous and important bankruptcies. The suicides increased in proportion. Among them one person made herself remarkable by a thoughtful provision to prevent disappointment. A woman, who had scraped everything together to put into the lottery, and who found herself ruined at its close, fixed a rope to a beam of sufficient strength; but lest there should be any accidental failure in the beam or rope, she placed a large tub of water underneath, that she might drop into it; and near her also were two razors on a table ready to be used, if hanging or drowning should prove ineffectual.

A writer of the time gives the following account of the excitement that prevailed during the drawing of the lottery: — `Indeed, whoever wishes to know what are the “blessings&” of a lottery, should often visit Guildhall during the time of its drawing, — when he will see thousands of workmen, servants, clerks, apprentices, passing and repassing, with looks full of suspense and anxiety, and who are stealing at least from their master's time, if they have not many of them also robbed him of his property, in order to enable them to become adventurers. In the next place, at the end of the drawing,

let our observer direct his steps to the shops of the pawnbrokers, and view, as he may, the stock, furniture, and clothes of many hundred poor families, servants, and others, who have been ruined by the lottery. If he wish for further satisfaction, let him attend at the next Old Bailey Sessions, and hear the death-warrant of many a luckless gambler in lotteries, who has been guilty of subsequent theft and forgery; or if he seek more proof, let him attend to the numerous and horrid scenes of self-murder, which are known to accompany the closing of the wheels of fortune each year:[149] and then let him determine on “the wisdom and policy&” of lotteries in a commercial city.'

The capital prizes were so large that they excited the eagerness of hope; but the sum secured by the government was small when compared with the infinite mischief it occasioned. On opening the budget of 1788, the minister observed in the House of Commons, `that the bargain he had this year for the lottery was so very good for the public, that it would produce a gain of £270,000, from

which he would deduct £12,000 for the expenses of drawing, &c., and then there would remain a net produce of £258,000.' This result, therefore, was deemed extraordinary; but what was that to the extraordinary mischief done to the community by the authorization of excessive gambling!

Some curious facts are on record relating to the lotteries.

Until the year 1800 the drawing of the lottery (which usually consisted of 60,000 tickets for England alone) occupied forty-two days in succession; it was, therefore, about forty-two to one against any particular number being drawn the first day; if it remained in the wheel, it was forty-one to one against its being drawn on the second, &c.; the adventurer, therefore, who could for eight-pence insure the return of a guinea, if a given number came up the first day, would naturally be led, if he failed, to a small increase of the deposit according to the decrease of the chance against him, until his number was drawn, or the person who took the insurance money would take it no longer.

In the inquiry respecting the mendicity of London, in 1815, Mr Wakefield declared his opinion that the lottery was a cause of mendicity;

and related an instance — the case of an industrious man who applied to the Committee of Spitalfields Soup Society for relief; and when, on being asked his profession, said he was a `Translator' — which, when translated, signifies, it seems, the art of converting old boots and shoes into wearable ones; `but the lottery is about to draw, and,' says he, `I have no sale for boots or shoes during the time that the lottery draws' — the money of his customers being spent in the purchase of tickets, or the payment of `insurances.' The `translator' may have been mistaken as to the cause of his trade falling of; but there can be no doubt that the system of the lottery-drawing was a very infatuating mode of gambling, as the passion was kept alive from day to day; and though, perhaps, it did not create mendicity, yet it mainly contributed, with the gin-shops, night-cellars, obscure gambling houses, and places of amusement, to fill the pawnbrokers' shops, and diminish the profits of the worthy `translator of old shoes.'[150]

This reasoning, however, is very uncertain.

The sixteenth of a lottery ticket, which is the smallest share that can be purchased, has not for many years been sold under thirty shillings, a sum much too large for a person who buys old shoes `translated,' and even for the `translator' himself, to advance; we may therefore safely conclude that the purchase of tickets is not the mode of gambling by which Crispin's customers are brought to distress.

A great number of foreign lotteries still exist in vigorous operation. Some are supported by the state, and others are only authorized; most of them are flourishing. In Germany, especially, lotteries are abundant; immense properties are disposed of by this method. The `bank' gains, of course, enormously; and, also of course, a great deal of trickery and swindling, or something like it, is perpetrated.

Foreign lottery tickets are now and then illegally offered in England. A few years ago there appeared an advertisement in the papers, offering a considerable income for the payment of one or two pounds. Upon inquiry it was found to be the agency of a foreign lottery! These tempting offers of advertising speculators are a cruel

addition to the miseries of misfortune.

The Hamburg lottery seems to afford the most favourable representation of the system — as such — because in it all the money raised by the sale of tickets is redistributed in the drawing of the lots, with the exception of 10 per cent. deducted in expenses and otherwise; but nothing can compensate for the pernicious effects of the spirit of gambling which is fostered by lotteries, however fairly conducted. They are an unmitigated evil.

In the United States lotteries were established by Congress in 1776, but, save in the Southern States, heavy penalties are now imposed on persons attempting to establish them.

I need scarcely say that lotteries, whether foreign or British, are utterly forbidden by law, excepting those of Art Unions. The operations of these associations were indeed suspended in 1811; but in the following year an act indemnified those who embarked in them for losses which they had incurred by the arrest of their proceedings; and since that time they have been *tolerated under the eye of the law without any express statute being framed for their exemption. It is thought, however, that they tend to keep up the spirit of

gambling, and therefore ought not to be allowed even on the specious plea of favouring `art.'

*Private lotteries are now illegal at Common Law in Great Britain and Ireland; and penalties are also incurred by the advertisers of *foreign lotteries. Some years ago it became common in Scotland to dispose of merchandise by means of lotteries; but this is specially condemned in the statute 42 Geo. III. c. 119. An evasion of the law has been attempted by affixing a prize to every ticket, so as to make the transaction resemble a legal sale; but this has been punished as a fraud, even where it could be proved that the prize equalled in value the price of the ticket. The decision rested upon the plea that in such a transaction there was no definite sale of a specific article. Even the lotteries; for Twelfth Cakes, &c., are illegal, and render their conductors liable to the penalties of the law. Decisive action has been taken on this law, and the usual Christmas lotteries have been this year (1870) rigorously prohibited throughout the country. It is impossible to doubt the soundness of the policy that strives to check the spirit of gambling among the people; but still there may be some truth in the following remarks

which appeared on the subject, in a leading journal: —

`We hear that the police have received directions to caution the promoters of lotteries for the distribution of game, wine, spirits, and other articles of this description, that these schemes are illegal, and that the offenders will be prosecuted. These attempts to enforce rigidly the provisions of the 10 and 11 William III., c. 17, 42 George III., c. 119, and to check the spirit of speculation which pervades so many classes in this country may possibly be successful, but as a mere question of morality there can be no doubt that Derby lotteries, and, in fact, all speculations on the turf or Stock Exchange, are open to quite as much animadversion as the Christmas lotteries for a little pig or an aged goose, which it appears are to be suppressed in future. Is it not also questionable policy to enforce every law merely because it is a law, unless its breach is productive of serious evil to the community? If every old Act of Parliament is rummaged out and brought to bear upon us, we fear we shall find ourselves in rather an uncomfortable position. We cannot say whether or not the harm produced by these humble lotteries

is sufficient to render their forcible suppression a matter of necessity. They certainly do produce an amount of indigestion which of itself must be no small penalty to pay for those whose misfortune it is to win the luxuries raffled for, but we never yet heard of any one being ruined by raffling for a pig or goose; and if our Government is going to be paternal and look after our pocket-money, we hope it will also be maternal and take some little interest in our health. The sanitary laws require putting into operation quite as much as the laws against public-house lotteries and skittles.'

No `extenuating circumstances,' however, can be admitted respecting the notorious racing lotteries, in spite of the small figure of the tickets; nay this rather aggravates the danger, being a temptation to the thoughtless multitude. One of these lotteries, called the Deptford Spec., was not long ago suppressed by the strong arm of the law; but others still exist under different names. In one of these the law is thought to be evaded by the sale of a number of photographs; in another, a chance of winning on a horse is secured by the purchase of certain numbers of a newspaper struggling into existence; but the following is, perhaps,

the drollest phase of the evasion as yet attempted: `Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast.' — Rev., chap. xiii.

`NICKOLAS REX. — “LUCKY&” BANQUETS.

`HIS SATANIC MAJESTY purposes holding a series of Banquets, Levees, and DRAWING ROOMS at Pandemonium during the ensuing autumn, to each of which about 10,000 of his faithful disciples will be invited. H. S. M. will, at those drawing-rooms and receptions, *number a lot of beasts, and distribute a series of REWARDS, varying in value from £100 to 10s. of her Britannic Majesty's money.

`Tickets One Shilling each, application for which must be made *by letter to His S. Majesty's Chamberlain, &c. &c. The LAST *Drawing-room of this season will be held a few days before the Feast of the CROYDON STEEPLECHASES, &c. &c.