STATE LOTTERY.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18680, 1 May 1926, Page 7

STATE LOTTERY.

SUBSTITUTE FOR ART UNIONS. NEW SOUTH WALES PROPOSAL. (FKOH 008 OWN COREZBPONDECT.) SYDNEY, April 14. Like the poor, the sellers of art union tickets are always with us in Sydney. The fact that these art unions are nearly always in aid of this or that hospital, and that the public hospitals appear to be always in an impecunious condition, has again evoked a controversy in the columns of a section of the Press in regard to the desirableness or otherwise of legalising a State lottery in aid of these institutions. By some, of course, the proposal is regarded as rank heresy. Others are | equally emphatic in support of it, especially as it would keep within the State, for beneficent purposes, money that now goes out of it for lotteries. One writer, who has been delving into very interesting history, points to at least one instance on record of the New South Wales Parliament having sanctioned a somewhat similar measure. It was back in the 'forties, during a period of stress occasioned by one of the most devastating droughts in the history of the State. Faced, amidst tie dark hour, with the closing down of a big bank, W. C. Wentworth, regardless of public opinion, sought to stem the tide, not only by imposing a lien on wool, but by introducing into Parliament a Bill to enable the bank to dispose of certain property by means of a public lottery. The tickets were £5 each—ail prizes and no blanks. Among the prizes were two well-stocked stations and city property. Flushed with the success of the State lottery, Wentworth, it is said, shortly after sought legal authority similarly to dispose of his property, which had become more or less valueless at that critical juncture. The Government, however, opposed the scheme. One of the city properties disposed of by State lottery was a quaint old inn, the Cottage of Content, in what is now the he4rt of the City. The lucky holder of a ticket got it for £6. Today the site of the old Cottage of Content, where early Sydney quaffed its ale and made merry, is occupied by one of the City's biggest banks.