vidual to buy all the tickets in a lottery, his loss would be immense; and, on every principle of calculation, his loss will be proportionate for as many tickets as he may venture to buy. There are other aspects equally striking in which this calculation might be presented, if my limits did not admonish me, that I have already gone quite far enough.

Nor, when viewed as a measure of finance, or as the means of raising money with which to accomplish any object deemed desirable, is the lottery system more promising, than when, tested by calculation, it holds out the prospect of enriching individuals.

In the amount specified to be raised by any given lottery, the entire sum actually to be drained from the pockets of the people never appears. It is a striking feature of the system, that all is wrapped in concealment and obscurity. The proposal, for instance, to raise by lottery, $10,000 or $15,000, to be expended in public charity, or internal improvements, from the smallness of the sum is not supposed to be worthy of serious remonstrance or opposition. As the grant, too, confers only the power to offer a few tickets for sale, the purchase of which is free from constraint, and rests entirely upon the volition of the buyers, there can be, it is thought, no just objection against it. And when the destination of the money is considered, it appears to be so meritorious on the ground of benevolence or public spirit, that the measure, from meeting at first with acquiescence, is hailed at length with the voice of popular favor.

But it is not taken into the account, that the raising of so trivial a sum sometimes requires the issuing of schemes approaching to a million of dollars. Two lotteries in the State of Maine, granted in 1831, left a surplus in the treasury, beyond the expenses, of no more than $14.21, after having issued schemes to the amount of $60,000. A lottery was granted by the Legislature of Massachusetts, in 1812, to the town of Plymouth, for the purpose of raising $16,000, to be expended in completing certain repairs in the Plymouth beach. At the end of nine years, it was ascertained, that only $9,876-17 had been raised for the object, notwithstanding classes had been drawn, amounting in the aggregate to $886,439.75. Again; in 1811, the Legislature of Pennsylvania granted to a company the privi

lege of raising $340,000, for the purposes of the Union Canal. By a contract entered into with certain gentlemen of New York, schemes were permitted to be issued to an indefinite extent, upon the annual payment into the hands of the company of the sum of $30,000. In pursuance of this contract, and under the assumed authority of the grant, schemes had been issued by the end of the year 1833, exceeding, in the aggregate, the astonishing sum of thirty-three millions of dollars. The portentous career of this lottery has been arrested; but, if it had not been, it is difficult to conjecture how many millions more would have been levied upon the people, under the pretence that the grant had not been satisfied. In the State of New York, too, schemes were issued, between the adoption of her new constitution, in 1821, and the end of the year 1833, to the enormous amount of thirty-seven millions of dollars. It thus appears, that, to collect a few hundred dollars by means of the lottery system, the assessment must be thousands; and if the object is to accumulate a few thousands, no less than millions must be extracted from the pockets of the people.

But the sacrifice of money, great as the amount has been, is of comparatively small importance, when we inquire into the moral tendency and effects of the system, as made known by experience. As early as 1762, the Provincial Assembly of Pennsylvania pronounced it to be a mischievous and unlawful game; to be detrimental to youth, and ruinous to the poor; the source of fraud and dishonesty; alike hurtful to industry, commerce, and trade, as it was baneful to the interests of good citizenship, morality, and virtue.

It is all this and much more. In the train of the lottery system, an appalling picture of vice, crime, and misery, in every varied form, is presented to the mind. Husbands and fathers of families, respected through a long and well-sustained course of years, have at length, by the influence of this delusive enticement, been seduced from their integrity, and brought to end their days the tenants of a prison, under the just sentence of deep and complicated guilt. Others, again, in the prime of life, holding important public trusts, have become adventurers, by little and little, till their own resources have been swept away, and then, for

the desperate chance of retrieving their losses, they have betrayed the confidence of their station, have been detected and disgraced, and ultimately have been forced from the bosom of their families and their homes; rupturing the closest and most sacred ties of nature and affinity, and leaving those, whom they ought to have protected, a charge on the community.

Numerous instances might be adduced of persons yet in boyhood, clerks, and apprentices, who, singly and in combination, have purloined the property of their masters and employers, to meet the demands of continued disappointment in lottery speculations. Still another class might be mentioned, consisting of young men just freed from the control of guardians and friends, with a sufficient patrimonial inheritance to enable them to employ their time and talents usefully to the community, and advantageously and honorably to themselves; but who, ignorant of the true character of lottery schemes, have deliberately invested their all, in order to realize the sudden, certain, and independent fortunes, which are so lavishly promised by the lottery schemes, which meet their eyes at almost every step they take.* But on this (the moral) part of the subject, something more than a mere summary of the evils seems to be called for.

1. The system has reduced to insolvency very great numbers, who, before being drawn away by its seductions, were in prosperous circumstances. Few persons, when they have once permitted themselves to be drawn fairly within its influence, have escaped pecuniary ruin. By a transcript from "the records of the Insolvent Court for the city and county of Philadelphia," prepared from the petitions themselves, which were deliberately sworn or affirmed to by the petitioners, and which is now lying before me, it appears, that between March term, 1830, and September term, 1833, there were fifty-five cases of insolvency, which were ascribed to the ruinous effects of the lottery system. This fact indicates the magnitude of this one branch of the evil of the system, during the period of not much more than three years, and within the narrow precincts of the county of Philadelphia. It is certain, too, that the records of the court do not

*

Report of a Committee of the citizens of Philadelphia, appointed to investigate the evils of Lotteries, &c., made on the 12th of December, 1831.

include all who were driven to insolvency from this cause, within this time, and within the limits of this district. For many, whose losses in this way were the principal occasion of their misfortunes, suppressed the disclosure of them in their petitions, and the fact was only elicited by examinations at the bar. Many, likewise, either from the indulgence of creditors, or successful dexterity in eluding the law, were never driven into the Insolvent Court. Judging from what we know of the county of Philadelphia, how great must be the number of insolvencies, and consequently how great the domestic suffering, caused by the lottery system in the United States.

2. The system has led to very numerous cases of embezzlement, fraud, purloining, breach of trust, &c. It is in the regular course of events, that lottery speculations should finally plunge the speculator into deep and complicated guilt. He becomes poor by successive losses, his poverty leads him to petty villanies, he gradually proceeds from one impropriety to another, till at last his feelings become blunted, and his reputation is tarnished. Low dissipation and idle phantasms of golden showers, from being long indulged, have so impaired his faculties and weakened his sense of character, as to destroy his ability for any useful pursuit. He looks around him for assistance, but the avenues to relief are closed; he is in debt beyond the hope of extrication, his standing in society is ruined, and his native energy is gone. Thus prepared for some reckless effort to repair his fortune, where can he seek for aid, but from the principles which he has imbibed; what counsellors can he listen to, but his desperation and his necessities? I have before me an extensive collection of actual cases, illustrative of the numerous frauds, embezzlements, and purloinings to which the lottery system in this country has given birth. They consist of a melancholy detail of persons, of both sexes, and of almost every variety of employment and condition, ruined, first in estate and prospects, and finally in character, by the illusions and seductions of this destructive system of legalized gaming. Many of them are affecting, and even tragical, in the impression produced by their perusal.

3. Intemperance and suicide are extensively the consequences of this system. Intemperance, in the first instance, and eventu

ally suicide, seem to be the natural consequences of the course of life, which is incident to every species of gaming, and especially to gaming by the lottery system. For what is more likely to be resorted to as a cure for the tedium of idleness, or the disappointment of successive losses, than the excitement or insensibility to be found in the intoxicating cup? And, when that idleness at last terminates in despondency, and those losses in despair, where can the infatuated and unhappy victim find refuge but in the embraces of death? His sense of religion, his morals, and his courage have been dissipated with his money, and his hardened conscience feels no horror at the crime of self-destruction. Having ruined all his prospects in this world, he madly rushes upon his final destiny. Dupin ascribes a hundred cases of suicide annually to the lottery system, in the single city of Paris. Many years ago, a lottery scheme was formed in London, displaying several magnificent prizes of £50,000 and £100,000, which tempted to adventures of very large amount, and the night of the drawing was signalized by fifty cases of suicide.

4. The effects of drawing prizes have almost always been disastrous upon those who have drawn them. It is, perhaps, peculiar to the lottery system, that success and failure alike tend to ruin the victim of its allurements. The drawing of a prize has often tended to accelerate a downfall, which, without such success, might have been delayed. The actual cases are numerous, in which the drawing of a prize is the epoch of the adventurer's destruction, and may be considered as the knell of his earthly hopes and prospects. The cases before me show, that the few, who have been successful in drawing considerable prizes, have generally been led, by their success, to launch forth into new and still more extravagant adventures, by which they have eventually been involved in equally certain, and still more overwhelming ruin.

5. It may be well to institute a brief comparison between the lottery system and ordinary gaming. It admits of the most convincing proof, that the lottery system is more extensively prejudicial than other kinds of gaming, by holding out enticements which affect more or less every class in society. It is accom