Prayer for Lottery Luck.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 740, 19 April 1933, Page 6

Prayer for Lottery Luck .

JpROM 1569 to 1826 lotteries were a regular feature of English life, save for a short period of illegality under Queen Anne. The Government relied on them for an annual revenue of from £250,000 to £300,000. The first State lottery was “ boosted ” by Queen Elizabeth. She declared, by Royal proclamation, “ a very rich lottery—general of money, plate, and certain sorts of merchandise,” including considerable quantities of tapestry. All the prizes were displayed in the window of Mr Dericke, the Queen’s goldsmith, in Cheapside. The object of the lottery was said to be the repair of the harbours and fortifications of the kingdom, and other public works. There were 400,000 lots of 10s each. At first tickets sold rather tardily. Thereupon the Queen issued a second proclamation to set aside “ any scruple, suspition, doubt, fault or misliking.” Later, she roundly rated the justices of Kent, Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire, in order to stir them to greater efforts. The drawing began on January 11, 1569, and it continued, day and night, for just short of four months, in a building specially erected at the west door of St Paul’s Cathedral. By 1767 the Church had gone so far in its recognition of lotteries that a London lady who held a lottery ticket was prayed for in the church of her parish thus: ‘‘The prayers of the congregation are desired for the success of a person engaged in a new undertaking.”