CHAPTER VIII.

Invention of Lotteries.—The First Lottery.—Employed by the State.—Great Increase.—Eagerness to subscribe.—Evils of Lotteries.—Suicide through them.—Superstition.—Insurances.—Spread of Gambling.—Promises of Lotteries.—Humorous Episodes.—Legal Interference.—Parliamentary Report.—Lottery Drawing.—Picture of Morocco Men.—Their Great Evil.—Lottery Puffing.—Epitaph on a Chancellor.—Abolition of Lotteries.

The history of lotteries is one of those anomalies which it is the duty rather than the pleasure of the annalist to record. A minute picture, however, of the progress of these institutions, is as necessary to the financial annals of the Stock Exchange as it is to the development of the social history of a people. Invented by the Romans to enliven their festivities, they were to that luxurious people a new excitement; and the prizes distributed to their guests were in proportion to the grandeur of the giver. Fine estates, magnificent vases, and beautiful slaves, with other and less expensive prizes, gratified at once the pride of the founder and the cupidity of the guest.

The application, however, of lotteries to the service of a state originated at Genoa, the government of which established the principle for its own benefit. The Church was not long in following the example at Rome, where the inhabitants deprived themselves of necessaries toshare the chances which their excited imaginations magnified a hundredfold.

The first on record in England was drawn in 1569. The harbors and havens of the whole line of coast were out of repair, and the only mode of procuring money was by lottery. The prizes were partly in money and partly in silver plate, and the profits to be applied to the above purpose. But the drawing was a very important task; and, as 400,000 lots were to be drawn, night and day for nearly four months were the people kept in a state of excitement. The time occupied must have been somewhat tedious; and, as this was the first lottery, and there were but three offices in London, it is to be supposed that the drawing of that period bore the same proportion to the drawing at a later time, that the coaches then bore to the railroads now. In 1612, another lottery was allowed for the benefit of the Virginia colonies, in which a tailor gained the largest prize of 4,000 crowns. But thus early was it found that lotteries and demoralization went hand in hand. Sanctioned by the state as a source of gain, they were found equally profitable to private individuals; and the town teemed with schemes which brought wretchedness and ruin in their train. In March, 1620, however, they were suspended by an Order in Council; but it was only a suspension, and the evil was once more revived by Charles I., who, to assist a project of conveying water to London, granted a lottery towards its expenses. That which the first Charles allowed for so great a purpose, the second of the name allowed as a boon to those whom he could reward in no other way. It was in vain for censors to preach, divines to sermonize, or the House of Commons to legislate. While there was the chance of a great gain for a small risk, men ran in crowds to subscribe. Those who could not pay a large sum found plenty of opportunities to gamble for a small amount, and penny lotteries became common.[4]In 1694 they were again employed by the state, William III. having appealed to the propensities of the people, and raised one million by the sale of lottery-tickets, the prizes of which were funded at four per cent. for sixteen years. The voice of the moralist continued to be raised; and the public papers show, that, directly the state sanctioned the nuisance, the evil increased tenfold, and that schemes were introduced which were a loss to all save the promoters. “What a run of lotteries we have had!” says one. “With what haste they all put in their money! What golden promises they made!”

The anecdotes connected with these abominations, the grim, grotesque despair of the losers, and the eager delight of the gainers, was for the time the great entertainment of the town. Men ran with eager haste after the lotteries of merchandise; and “the people were tickled,” says a pamphleteer, “with the proposals of prodigious profits, when the proposersintended it only for themselves.” The writer concludes somewhat vehemently:—“Indeed, the people have been so damnably cheated, they have no need of dissuading, and their own sufferings are sufficient to convince them it is their interest to forbear.”

The system of lotteries sanctioned and employed by the legislature was a terrible temptation to human nature. The chance, however remote, of gaining a large sum by a small risk, with the feeling of anxious and not unpleasing excitement, rendered lotteries a favorite phase of English gambling; for the voice of the people had not spoken so peremptorily the great truth, that the state must not purchase a nation’s wealth at the price of a nation’s morals. That which a government employs as an instrument of wealth, is sure to be followed by the people to a lower extent, but in a more mischievous manner. In 1772, lottery magazine proprietors, lottery tailors, lottery stay-makers, lottery glovers, lottery hat-makers, lottery tea merchants, lottery snuff-and-tobacco merchants, lottery barbers,—where a man, for being shaved and paying threepence, stood a chance of receiving £10,—lottery shoe-blacks, lottery eating-houses,—where, for sixpence, a plate of meat and the chance of sixty guineas was given,—lottery oyster-stalls,—where threepence gave a supply of oysters and a remote chance of five guineas,—were plentiful; and, to complete a catalogue which speaks volumes, at a sausage-stall in a narrow alley was the important intimation written up, that for one farthing’s worth of sausages, the fortunate purchaser might realize a capital of five shillings. Quack doctors—a class which formed so peculiar a feature in village life of old—sold medicine at a high price, giving those who purchased it tickets in a lottery purporting to contain silver and other valuable prizes.

The eagerness of the populace grew with the opportunity. The newspapers teemed with proposals; and the rage for gambling reigned uncontrolled. Every ravenous adventurer who could collect a few articles advertised a lottery. Shopkeepers, compelled by the decrease of business, took the hint, and disposed of their goods in lottery. Ordinary business among the lower tradesmen was greatly suspended. Purchasers refused to give the full price for that which might be obtained for nothing. Large profits were procured upon worthless articles; and in 1709, so great was the eagerness to subscribe to a state lottery, that Mercers’ Hall was literally crowded with customers, and the clerks were insufficient to record the influx of names. It was, however, from those which were termed “little goes,”—which drew the last penny from the pockets of the poor man,—which saw the father gambling and the daughter starving, the mother purchasing tickets and the child crying for bread,—that most evil arose. The magistracy, not always the first to interfere, grew alarmed, and announced their determination to put in practice the penalties which, if earlier enforced, would have been beneficial, but, unhappily, were incompetent to put down that which they might easily have prevented. It was found, also, impossible to restrain in private adventurers the wrong that the state sanctioned in public.

It was known that lotteries were injurious to morals and to manners; it was known that crime followed in their wake; it was known that miseryand misfortune were their attendants; but the knowledge was vain, and remonstrance useless, under the plea of the necessities of the state.

Lotteries continued to be employed by ministers as an engine to draw money from the pockets of the people, at a price alike disgraceful to the government and demoralizing to all. The extent to which the evil had reached may be inferred from the fact, that money was lent on these as on any other marketable security; that, in 1751, upwards of 30,000 tickets were pawned to the metropolitan bankers; and this, when, to have an even chance for any prize, a purchaser must have held seven tickets; and it was ninety-nine to one that, even if a prize were drawn, it did not exceed £50.

Suicide through lotteries became common. The streets swarmed with unhappy wretches, who, while they suffered for the past, were making imaginary combinations for the future. All arts were resorted to. Lucky numbers were foretold by cunning women, who, when their art failed, shrouded themselves in their mysticism; and if fortune favored them, paraded their prophecies to the public.

The most gross and revolting superstition was practised to discover lucky numbers. Rites which surpassed the darkest imagination of a Maturin, and ceremonies which appear like relics of the elder world, were resorted to for the same purpose.

It was in vain that the smaller lotteries were put down; they only gave way to an evil which preyed upon the very vitals of English society. Insurance, an art upon which hundreds grew rich, while hundreds of thousands grew poor, was commenced with terrible success. Those who were unable to buy tickets, paid a certain sum to receive a certain amount if a particular number came up a prize. A plan like this was available for all, as the amount could be varied to the means of the insurer.

It is almost impossible to describe the many iniquities, the household desolation, the public fraud, and the private mischief, which resulted from insuring. Wives committed domestic treachery; sons and daughters ran through their portions; merchants risked the gains of honorable trade. “My whole house,” wrote one, “was infected with the lottery mania, from the head of it down to my kitchen-maid and post-boy, who have both pawned some of their rags that they might put themselves in fortune’s way.” The passions and prejudices of the sex were appealed to. Lovers were to strew their paths with roses; husbands were plentifully promised, and beautiful children were to adorn their homes through the lottery. And all these glories were promised when Adam Smith declared, as an incontrovertible fact, that the world never had, and never would, see a fair lottery. So great were the charms of insuring, while the chances were so small, that respectable tradesmen, in defiance of the law, met for this illegal purpose, on the following day to that on which some of their body had been taken handcuffed before a magistrate. The agents were spread in every country village, and the possession of a prize was an absolute curse to the community. Its effects were witnessed alike in the shock it gave to industry, and the love of gambling it spread among the people. It is due to those whose voices were lifted up against these abominations to say, that their appeals to the good feeling of thegovernment were incessant; but the state replied in that language which is so unanswerable when held by a firm government, that the necessities of the state overbalanced the evils of the lottery.

Nor could ignorance be pleaded of its fatal effects. The domestics of the senators themselves purchased shares with their masters’ money; and members of the lower and upper house were unable to resist the fascinations of the game they condemned. The most subtle language was not wanting to support the cause. Scripture was used to defend it; and as the Bible was perverted by the supporters of the slave-trade, and lately by the discoverers of the virtues of chloroform, so was it now wrested to prove the antiquity and sanctity of lotteries. “By lot,” they said, “it was determined which of the goats should be offered to Aaron. By lot the land of Canaan was divided. By lot Saul was marked out for the kingdom. By lot Jonah was discovered to be the cause of the storm.”

There are many incidents, which, recorded in contemporary annals, have been either overlooked or disregarded as insignificant. There is, however, nothing insignificant connected with so important a topic, and nothing ought to be overlooked on an evil which has eaten to the very heart of society, and which may again be used by some unscrupulous minister for some unscrupulous purpose. The declaration of Sir Samuel Romilly, that “whenever the House voted a lottery, they voted that the deserving should become depraved,” with the additional assertion, that “the crimes committed would be chiefly bought off by the paltry gain to the state coffers,” was entirely disregarded.

Let it be remembered that a chancellor declared “he could not see that lotteries led to gambling,”—that though the Corporation of London presented an earnest petition for their abolition, as injurious to commerce and injurious to individuals,—that though Lord Mansfield said the state exhibited the temptation and then punished for the crime to which it tempted,—that though, on one occasion, out of twenty-two convicts who left the country, eighteen commenced their career with insuring,—that though forged notes were encouraged from the carelessness with which lottery-office keepers received and passed them,—that though it was iterated and reiterated that no circumstances conduced so much to make bad wives and bad husbands, bad children and bad servants,—that though men threw themselves into the river from the infatuation of their wives,—though the plate of respectable families was pledged to assist the mania,—that though the poor-rates were increased, and the consumption of excisable articles diminished, during the drawing,—that though the gambling and lottery transactions of one individual only were productive of from ten to fifteen suicides annually,—that though half a million sterling yearly came from metropolitan servants,—that though four hundred fraudulent lottery-offices were in London alone,—that though no revenue was ever collected at so great an expense to the people,—that though families pawned every thing they had, sold the duplicates, and were reduced to poverty,—that though women forgot the sanctities of their sex,—that though the parishes were crowded with applicants who had reduced themselves by insurances,—that though perjury was common, and small annuitants squandered their resources,—thatalthough all these pictures were drawn, and statements made, so publicly and so prominently that they could not fail to reach even the obtuse ears of a dominant ministry,—yet it was not until 1826 that the evil was abolished. A similar pressure may recall the evil. It is of no importance to argue that lotteries are forbidden, and that the morals and the minds of the people are more regarded. Lotteries have been repeatedly forbidden, but they have been invariably renewed when the coffers of the state were low; and the morals of the people are a minor point compared with the balance-sheet of the nation.

The melancholy history was occasionally enlivened by episodes, which sometimes arose from the humor, and sometimes from the sufferings of the populace. It is recorded as a fact, that, to procure the aid of the blind deity, a woman to whom a ticket had been presented caused a petition to be put up in church, in the following words:—“The prayers of the congregation are desired for the success of a person engaged in a new undertaking”; a singular contrast to others, who sought the midnight gloom of a church-yard to secure them the good fortune so eagerly craved. Romantic incidents often checkered the history. Old bureaus with secret drawers, containing the magic papers which led to an almost magic fortune, were purchased of brokers, or descended as heirlooms.

The evils in country places were more vividly impressed on the mind from the smallness of the population. In a village near town, a benefit-club for the support of aged and infirm persons existed for many years. Among the members was one who, in trying his luck, gained £3,000. The effect was feverish and fatal to the peace of the little community. The society formed to nourish the sick and clothe the needy, was converted into a lottery-club. The quiet village, which had hitherto vegetated in blessed peacefulness, rang with the sound of prizes, sixteenths, and insurances. People carried their furniture to the pawnbrokers, while others took their bedclothes in the depth of winter to the same source. The money thus procured was thrown away upon lotteries; and the prize of £3,000 was destructive to the happiness of the place.

Up to the year 1780, although these many evils were well known, insurances, and every species of gambling connected with the lottery, were legal. But the malady grew so violent, that, after much urging, a step was taken in the right direction. Insurances were declared illegal, and prohibited under very heavy penalties. So many, however, were imprisoned,—and perjury was not wanting for the sake of the penalty,—that some check was necessary. A law, therefore, was made, preventing any one from suing save the Attorney-General; and some idea may be formed of the extent of the evil from the fact, that, between 1793 and 1802, upwards of one thousand were punished with imprisonment. But the determination to insure surpassed the determination to punish. The officers of government were absolutely defied. Blood, in defence of that which the law declared illegal, was freely shed. So organized was the system, that two thousand clerks, and seven thousand five hundred persons known as “Morocco men,” with a numerous staff of armed ruffians, were attached to the insurance-offices. Committees were held three times a week; measures were invented to defeat the magistrates; moneyto an enormous extent was used to bribe the constabulary; while to those who refused to be bribed, a bold and insolent defiance was offered, with threats, which the officers well knew would be executed at the risk, or even the certain sacrifice, of life.

In 1805, Parliament again took cognizance of the evil. The reiterated declarations of the press, the repeated assertion of members of the senate, the universal voice of the country, coupled with the notorious fact, that crime continued to follow the system, compelled government to appoint a committee of the House to report upon it. The attendance of all who could give any information upon the subject was required, and a volume of evidence printed, which, though it must have opened the eyes, could not open the hearts, of the ministers.

Time, instead of softening or subduing the misery, had extended its ramifications into the highest, as it once had been confined to the lowest, society. The middle class—ordinarily supposed to be freest from vice—had gradually succumbed. The penniless miscreant of one day became the opulent gambler of the next; and the drawing of the lotteries might be marked by the aspect of the pawnbrokers’ shops, which overflowed with the goods of the laborer, with the ornaments of the middle class, and with the jewels of the rich. Servants went to distant places with the purloined property of their masters, pledged it, and, destroying the tickets, insured in the lottery. Manufacturers discharged those workmen who could not resist the temptation. During the drawing of the prizes less labor was done by the artisans. Housekeepers of the lower order were unable to pay their taxes; money was begged from benevolent societies; and men, pretending they were penniless, were fed and housed by the parish while embarking in these chimerical schemes. Felons, on the morning of an ignominious death, named lotteries as the first cause; and often, if a dream pointed to a particular number, crimes were committed to procure it, which led to transportation instead of fortune. Individuals presented themselves to insure, with such unequivocal marks of poverty in their appearance, that even the office-keepers refused their money; and yet, such was the indefatigable love of adventure, that many would come in at one door as fast as they were shown out at the other.

“When I have caught a great many in a room together,” said one witness, “I have found most of them poor women, and in their pockets twenty or thirty, and even sixty, duplicates on one person. Their pillows, their bolsters, their very clothes, were pledged, till they were almost naked.”

“First,” said Mr. Sheridan, “they pawned ornaments and superfluities, then their beds, the very clasps of their children’s shoes, the very clothes of the cradle. The pawnbroker grew ashamed of his profession.”

A walk near the spot where the prizes were announced painfully evinced the progress this terrible delusion had made, and the classes to which it had extended.

Hundreds of wretched persons, the refuse of society, the very dregs of the people, might be seen waiting with frightful eagerness until their fate was decided. The courtesan was there, forgetting for a time her avowedpursuit; the man who the night before had committed some great crime; the pale artisan with his attenuated wife; the girl just verging upon womanhood; the maid-servant, who had procured a holiday to watch her fortune; weary forms and haggard faces, mingling with the more robust and ruffianly aspects,—yet all bearing one peculiarity, that of intense anxiety,—marked the purlieus of the place where the lottery was drawn. The oath which shocked the ear, the act which shocked the eye, the scurrilous language of the boy ripe in mature iniquity, the scream of the child dragged from its rest, to mingle in scenes it could not comprehend, formed a pictorial group which Hogarth alone could have given to posterity, as an evidence of civilization in the nineteenth century.

But it has been said, that the mischief was not confined to the poorer classes. Persons of the first consequence entered into insurances for a great amount. Instances are not wanting, in which gentlemen of large landed property, guilty of no other extravagance, lost all their cash, sold their estates, and died in the poor-house.

The “Morocco men,” so called from the red morocco pocketbooks which they carried, were remarkable features in the lottery, half a century ago. They began their lives as pigeons, they closed them as rooks. They had lost their own fortunes in their youth, they lost those of others in their age. Generally educated, and of bland manners, a mixture of the gentleman and the debauchee, they easily penetrated into the society they sought to destroy. They were seen in the deepest alleys of Saint Giles, and were met in the fairest scenes of England. In the old hall of the country gentleman, in the mansion of the city merchant, in the butlery of the rural squire, in the homestead of the farmer, among the reapers as they worked on the hill-side, with the peasant as he rested from his daily toil, addressing all with specious promises, and telling lies like truth, was the morocco man found, treading alike the finest and the foulest scenes of society. They whispered temptation to the innocent; they hinted at fraud to the novice; they lured the youthful; they excited the aged; and no place was so pure, and no spot so degraded, but, for love of 7½ per cent., did the morocco man mark it with his pestilential presence. No valley was so lonely, but what it found some victim; no hill so remote, but what it offered some chance; and so enticing were their manners, that their presence was sought, and their appearance welcomed, with all the eagerness of avarice.

And little were they who dealt with these persons aware of the characters with whom they trafficked. Of bland behaviour, but gross habits, the nature of their influence on the unpolluted minds with which they had to deal may be judged from the fact, that some of the morocco men ended their days at Tyburn; that transportation was the doom of others; and that the pillory was the frequent occupation of many. To such men as these were the morals of the people exposed through the lottery. Nor, if the opinion of a member of the senate can be trusted, was the lottery-office keeper much better. “I know of no class of persons in the country,” said Mr. Littleton, “excepting hangmen and informers, on whom I should be less disposed to bestow one word of commendation.”

The wonder is, not that the public was tempted so much, but that it wasseduced so little. Puffing, by the side of which the power of a Mechi and a Moses waxes dim, was employed to assist the contractor. Myriads of advertisements were circulated in the streets. The newspapers, under all forms and phases, contained stories of wonderful prizes. Horns were sounded; huge placards displayed; false and seductive lures held out; houses hired for the sole purpose of displaying bills; falsehoods fresh every day; and fortunes to be had for nothing. Puffs, paragraphs, and papers circulated wherever the ingenuity of man could contrive. The public thoroughfares were blazoned by day and lighted by night with advertisements.

With such a picture of crime as has been presented to the reader, he may not think the quiet satire of Mr. Parnell on the Chancellor unmerited. He said that the following epitaph ought to be placed on his grave:—

“Here lies the Right Honorable Nicholas Vansittart, once Chancellor of the Exchequer, who patronized Bible Societies, built churches, encouraged savings’ banks, and supported lotteries.”

The attention bestowed on the subject, the mass of intelligence collected, the evidence given by competent parties, produced considerable notice, and the report condemned the evil the committee had examined.

“The foundation of the lottery,” it said, “is so radically vicious, that under no system can it become an efficient source of gain, and yet be divested of the evils and calamities of which it has proved so baneful a source.

“Idleness, dissipation, and poverty are increased; sacred and confidential trusts are betrayed; domestic comfort is destroyed; madness often created; crimes subjecting the perpetrators to death are committed.

“No mode of raising money appears so burdensome, so pernicious, and so unproductive. No species of adventure is known where the chances are so great against the adventurers; none where the infatuation is more powerful, lasting, and destructive.

“In the lower classes of society, the persons engaged are, generally speaking, either immediately or ultimately tempted to their ruin; and there is scarcely any condition of life so destitute and so abandoned, that its distresses have not been aggravated by this allurement to gambling.”

Notwithstanding the strong nature of this report, the labors of the committee were fruitless. Various attempts at amelioration were made, but the evil was not finally abolished until the year 1826.

FOOTNOTES:[4]Mr. J. B. Heath says of the early lotteries, in his valuable volume entitled “Some Account of the Grocers’ Company,”—“There is not one entry in the accounts to show that the prizes were ever paid,” and quotes various documents to prove that they were very difficult to procure. “The science of puffing,” adds this gentleman, “which in our times has attained such perfection, was unknown at that period, and in lieu of placards and advertisements, the more direct mode was adopted of personal solicitation.”

[4]Mr. J. B. Heath says of the early lotteries, in his valuable volume entitled “Some Account of the Grocers’ Company,”—“There is not one entry in the accounts to show that the prizes were ever paid,” and quotes various documents to prove that they were very difficult to procure. “The science of puffing,” adds this gentleman, “which in our times has attained such perfection, was unknown at that period, and in lieu of placards and advertisements, the more direct mode was adopted of personal solicitation.”

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