LOTTERIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 150, 27 June 1931, Page 11 (Supplement)

LOTTERIES.

STATE-PRQMOTED GAMBLES. WHEN QUEEN BESS WANTED FUNDS. THE 18TH CENTURY FEVER, The start of a State lottery 'next month in New South Wales to replenish the depleted Government exchequer recalls some of the early efforts by which the lottery system was introduced to the British public. Although sweepstakes on horse races are a comparatively modern form of gambling, the lottery, which is the parent of the sweepstake, is very old. It existed in ancient Rome, and was encouraged by successive Roman Emperors. The first public lottery in England of which there is any record was launched in 1566 in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It consisted of 400,000 shares, or lots, of 10/ each, and the object of it was to raise funds to repair harbours, fortifications and other public works. The first prize was £5000, consisting of £3000 in cash, £700 in plate, and the remainder in "good tapestry, meet for hangings and otiier covertures, and certain sorts of good linen cloth." It is of interest to, contrast the reluctance of the Elizabethan Englishman to participate in this lottery with the sweepstake madness of the present day'. Although the lottery was opened in October, 1566, it filled so slowly that it was not drawn until January, 1569. A Royal proclamation set out in persuasive language the advantages of the lottery, so that "any scruple, suspicion, doubt, fault-or nrisliking" that might occur, "especially to those that be inclined to be suspicious," should be removed, and all persons have "their reasonable contentation and satisfaction." In those days the, word adventurers was used instead of subscribers, to describe persons taking a share in a lottery. But adventurers were very slow in coming forward, and the Mayor of London issued a proclamation strongly recommending the public to put money into the lottery. "Though the wiser sort may find cause to satisfy themselves therein," said the proclamation, the Mayor felt that it was necessary to explain the scheme more fully "to the satisfaction of the scrupler sort." But the ecrupler sort were slow in joining the ranks of the wiser sort, and the Queen sent a somewhat menacing mandate to the Mayor of London and the justices of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire, blaming them for failure to push the sale of tickets. When the lottery was eventually filled, after it had been before the public for more than two years, the drawing took place at the west door of St. Paul's Cathedral, and went on day after day from January 11, 1569, until May 6. The system of drawing was more protracted than in these days of huge sweepstakes. Every ticket was drawn from the wheel which contained every number in the lottery, and a blank or a prize was drawn simultaneously from another wheel.

Another Royal Sweep Promoter. Lotteries became prevalent in England .after Charles 11. was restored to the throne; but fraud and cheating soon became associated with them, and made the public wary and suspicious. A lottery was raised to assist the plantation of the English colonies in Virginia; another to finance a supply of water for London. The Royal Oak lottery for providing assistance to Royalists who had suffered material loss in the civil war seems to have been a swindle, states John Ashton in his "History of Gambling in England." "Indeed, this may be said to have been the case with a good many of the lotteries in the time of Charles II.," continues Mr. Ashton. "When Prince Rupert died and his jewels were to be disposed of by lottery, the public would not subscribe unless the King consented to see that all was fair." The largest prize was a pearl necklace valued at £8000, and no prize was below £100 in value. In order to convince adventurers that tljey would get a fair deal, a notice was inserted in the "London Gazette" which stated that "as soon as the whole sum is paid in, a short day will be appointed (which it is hoped will be before Christmas) and notified in the 'Gazette,' for the drawing thereof, which will be done in his •Majesty's presence, who is pleased to declare that he himself .will see all tho prizes put among the blanks, and that the whole shall be managed with all equity and, fairness." ''.' The Lottery Fever. In 1098 a penny lottery, in which the only prize was £1000,: v-as launched ii London, and it proved exceedingly popular. More than"2oo,ooo tickets were sold in two days. It was announced that the prize bad been won by a, destitute boy, who had bought a ticket with a penny given him by a woman who had been touched by his poverty. The first bridge across the Thames at Westminster was built out of funds raised by lotteries. The first of these lotteries consisted of 125,000 tickets of £5 each. It was so successful that Parliament sanctioned other lotteries until the bridge was completed. The British Museum, which is the most famous institution of its kind in the world, had its inception in a lottery. In 1753 Parliament sanctioned a lottery of £300,000 in £3'shares, two-thirds to be distributed -iff prizes and the remainder to be used in purchasing for the nation Sir Hans Sloane's-extensive collection of books,' manuscripts, prints, coins, medals and.natural history specimens, and in obtaining a building to house this collection which formed the foundation of the-British Museum. The managers and trustees of this lottery were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chancellor, and the Speaker of the House of Commons. Each of them received £100 for his services in connection with the lottery.

The lottery fever developed rapidly during the eighteenth century. It is recorded that a lady living at Holborn was presented with a lottery ticket by her husband, and, that she became so anxious about'winning a prize that she prevailed on the vicar of the parish to announce from the pulpit on the Sunday before the drawing was to take place, that "the prayers of the congregation are desired for the success of a person engaged in a new undertaking." The first person to win a prize of £20,000 in a lottery in England was James Calvert, the owner of a large vinegar factory in the City Road, London. This lottery was drawn in 1780. Calvert subsequently won a. prize of £5000; but he succumbed to the gambling fever, and he squandered all his fortune in lotteries. Exploiting the Public. State lotteries launched for the purpose of raising money for public purposes began in England in 1709, and continued until 182 G. They stimulated the gambling fever among the public, and yielded a profit not only to the State 3 but to

hundreds of lottery agents installed in imposing offices in London and the provincial towns. The agents advertised that they were harbingers of luck, and gave- details of the prizes they had won in previous lotteries for their patrons. They bought shares in the State lotteries, which they were allowed to subdivide and sell to the public at increased rates. A share in a Sta,te lottery usually cost £10, but the agents were allowed to sell half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth parte, and to charge rates which brought them in a profit of as much as 100 per cent. Miss Dorothy George, in her study of London life in the " Eighteenth Century," writes as follows concerning the lottery mania:—''The State lotteries were a cause of widespread ruin and misery. About 1778 they became a regular method of raising money; previously they had been frequent financial expedients. While the lottery was being drawn—in 1802 the period was reduced from forty days to eight—there was great falling off in the takings of all tradesmen dealing with the poorer classes except pawnbrokers, who took in many more pledges, though there was a great reduction in redemptions. There was a mania among all classes for lottery insurances, by which any person could insure any number for any amount against coming up blank. These were illegal and often fraudulent, but they could not be stopped. The profits to tho principals, who remained in the background, were enormous; they employed touts, called 'morocco men' from the pocket books they used, who went round the publichouses collecting money. Besides the State lotteries, there were illegal private lotteries called Little Goes, which were grossly fraudulent, the drawings being manipulated and their proprietors well-known bad characters." In 1802 all lotteries not authorised by Parliament were made illegal in England, and in 1826 the State lotteries, which had yielded a revenue of about £250,000 a year, were abolished.