ROOTS IN THE PAST

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 11493, 21 November 1931, Page 9

ROOTS IN THE PAST

! LOTTERY’S HLSTORY

“RAISING THE WIND.”

UNIVERSAL AUREAL

England took to lotteries in the time of Queen Elizabeth, when Her Majesty appeared to accept the idea as a good one for raising the wind. One drawn in 1d39 had the inducement of money prizes, plate, tapestries, and other goods. Elizabeth had to scold the business community very severely before the city companies took tickets, says a writer in the '‘Sydney Morning Herald.” In the next few decades the lotteries were a well-established business, but complaints came early. • For some years .afterwurds the Government applied the lottery attraction to its loan raising, and sweep promoters in various parts of England established profitable, though illegal, businesses. After 1.721 the Government, by Act of Parliament, declared them immoral in others while carrying on itself. We arc thus through 'Mr Lang repeating history. Swindling and knavery wore rim. Forgery, counterfeiting, and altering in regard to the tickets "'-re easy. Merchants gave lottery tickets to purchasers, just as they now giro “coupons”. Also, there sprang up a fascinating form of gambling in the insurance of tickets, a small sum assuring the payment of a larger sum if anv given number drew a blank. 'l'hc system became an evil, and a host of rogues and vagabonds thrived on it. They were dealt with legislatively, but never failed to find 'some means of “bootlegging.” in the train were informers and blackmailers. In the time of George HI the lessons had been well learned, but then a Lottery Act was passed against emphatic protests at justice and morality being sacrificed to expediency. The last Government lottery in England was in IS2G. PIIIVATE EFFORT One outcome of the State lottery in England was the prevalence of a vast number, of small privately run concerns. ,At one - investigation, evidence .was. given, by a Magistrate that tlie actual loss to the public, bv the lotteries was well over a million, which was a figure oi eonsideijibly larger import then than m these .times when we talk casually of deficits of six or eight millions. It was stated that “no revenue had been obtained by the Government at half the expense in point of pecuniary sacrifice to the public independent of the excessive injury to the morals, of the people, and that it bad been, the means for the establishment of a large profession containing the, idle and profligate, many of whom had acquired large fortunes touts, canvassers, and jackals working on commission is an illegal business.’’

When the last State lottery was drawn extraordinary efforts at advertising it were made. A lottery carriage with postillions in scarlet, the carriage surmounted with the Imperial Crown, a brass band, billboard men on horseback, and other displays toured London daily. At lien it was all over, the London “limes expressed the hope that its place would not be taken by “some more mischievous system of knavery.”

France liad numerous lotteries run Ly the State, private lotterie s being suppressed by decree in 17iG. and tlie teemi-ofiicial -were, merged into the Loterie I\ovale, which was ultimately stopped in 1330. They prevailed ill various forms for special purposes afterwards. Lotteries were suppressed in Belgium in 1830. Sweden in 1841, and Switzerland in ISOo. but they existed for many years in various other countries. In Amei ica, a national lottery was instituted in. a 776. and thereafter for Som« rears many wen© authorised for public purposes. After 1833 prohibition set in. and gradually they disappeared, until the only one left was m Louisiana, where a company had a monopoly for which it paid 40.004 dollars to the State. In 1890 renewal was refused, ami the use of tlm mails forbidden, when, it moved to Honduras. TN. AUSTRALIA A J big • sweep was established in Australia.' • maiiy nyears ffiafck.' ' but there were lotteries,' or sweeps before ■the adventi of this: one. ’ One-of the most • notable was known as Miller s Sweep. whieli operated *in .Sydney and' Melbourne,' Miller being a part-, in'er In a • AvelUknown . firm of bookmaker's. Another promoter' was at the time keeping the" Steam j, Packet Hotel at' Kiama. He went to Sydney und:i began/big sweeps,? which; have continued 1 ever - since. U’lie; files t■> one was £IOOO. • As ..the business i grew prizes wore -Avon amounting to as 'high as'£24.ooo‘for'the first.'- 'The Hibbs Government , passed a Fid .Aviucli put' an end tp,sA\'eeps in this part of*Australia. and the institution Avas shifted to another State. The Commonwealth Government ear-, ly 'in its history refused the.use of the‘post-office,l but . the an'omaly ’ of official refusal of countenance by the Federal authority Avliilq one state gaA'e sliielter, refused in another, continued until recently. ... ' Otlyir sweeps started in A-ar.ious parts, but for'some reason did not survive. One that Avas avcll ' known in Queensland in the seventies was at a hotel at a crossing, which

became AVinton, where the publican ran a sweep on the Melbourne Cup, of £2OOO. It. grew and became a successful venture. Another that had considerable vogue was established by Joe Charles in AYestern Australia. when the gold boom was at its height. That venturesome entrepreneur Went to China, and carried on a kind of branch establishment there for a while.

In Australia wo have been kept well acquainted with lotteries in sundry shape and form for many years. 11l Sydney they have been familiar under the absurd name of “art union,” the prizes varying from motor cars to diamond tiaras. The title carries with it certain obligations, but it is largely a legal salve to tho wounded conscience. Or it has been. Wo have now thrown aside the soft sophistry in charity s name, and the director of the New South AA ales State Lottery is at work in his new-ly-established offices preparing these “consultations” with their morality established by Act of Parliament. Lottery investment is a form of gambling that means greater odds than any other kind. An investment in a sweep or lottery in which there are 100,000 tickets means that you have 99,999 to I against you for the big first prize, but, of course, human nature, ever ready to give rein to wild hopes, says “Somebody's got to win it-: it might be me,” and takes several tickets to 1 reduce the odds. And. of course, someone will win the prizes'. : In' the'- Booming > years of Tattersalls in 'New South- AA ales tliCre we.rC'occasionally 'eases Heard of-' in - which the -whole first ■ prize, amounting to perhaps' £2-5,000, was won by' one • individual", ■ sometimes •witli disastrous ‘ results to' the recipient ivlich 'the shower of 'gold 'felt on-'llls head. 1 r To’ receive. £25,000 in. that way requires' sttoiig morale. THe practice used to be that the drawer of a ticket on a'favorite horse would promptly telegraph owndrr'jockey,, and trainer' a. considerable portion as a wager'against nothing, ou their part so that they should' be induced _to race -to- win. » f ’ ; . 1 ‘ ‘ Some . people made ' a regular .practice of “investing”,„apjl .did 1 so for years without winjpng a ./poundsuch is the marvellous /optimism that lies-in the -bosom of-«tlie gambler. Mathematically tho lottery is plain robbery, as the -od4sr aro so enormously against-'the of ,a ticket, but the office .boy. hflo as good a 'chance. as ’his employer, and both say:- .“Hang the odds!”- .tho price-of the ticket being small. Tho knowledge,- that: somebody ' won -* thousand pounds- in the last ope is sufficient-to induce - investment in-tho next,‘particularly if the-winner hap"yenod to bp an acquaintance.. -