STATE LOTTERIES

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6630, 8 June 1928, Page 10

STATE LOTTERIES

PAST EXPERIMENTS IN GREAT BRITAIN. The request made to the British Chancellor of the Exchequer for an inquiry into the posibilities of an issue of Government bonus bonds has caused a contributor to the Newcastle ‘Weekly Chronicle’ to look up the records of the past. Since the sixth year of the reign of George IV., the Government of Great Britain has resolutely set its face against State lotteries and sweepstakes, but prior to that year lotteries were allowed for various purposes. The first State lottery took place in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. Tickets were on sale for nearly two years prior to the drawing in 1568-69. The highest prize was £5,000 —£3,000 in cash, £7OO in plate, and the remainder in tapestry. The profits of this lottery were directed to the repair of harbours. It is estimated that between 1793 and 1824 the Government raised on an average £346,765 every year by means of lotteries. Luring the closing years of £ho eighteenth century, when the State lottery mania was at its height, clergymen were paid by those who had risked money in these lotteries to put up prayers in church for their success. A gentlewoman in Holborn, whose husband had presented her with a ticket, put up prayers in church on the Sunday before the drawing in the following terms: "The prayers of the congregation was desired for the success of a person engaged in a new undertaking.” The last State lottery was drawn on October 18, 1826, and the ceremony took place in Cooper’s Hall, Basinghall street. America, too, has had its national lotteries. One of the first Acts of the American Congress of 1776 was to institute a national lottery. The numerous private lotteries, however gave rise to scandalous abuses, and in most of the States Acts were finally passed entirely prohibiting anything having the nature of a lottery. Lotteries have been allowed for various purposes. One in 1753 was in the interests of the British Museum, another was held on the sale of Cox’s Museum, and a third for the building of the Adelphi.