The Hiſtorical Dictionary,
By Ezra Sampson, author of the Beauties of the Bible, is one of the moſt uſeful little works of this nature which we have ſeen. It contains much in a ſmall compaſs. Its ſubjects are Natural and Civil Hiſtory, Geography, Zoology, Botany and Mineralogy, arranged in alphabetical order, and explained in ſuch a neat and intelligible manner, as to render it worthy of being (according to its deſign) a Companion for Youth. We ſelect the following article as a ſpecimen of the work.
LOTTERY,
A kind of public game at hazard, in order to raise money for the service of the state. A lottery consists of several numbers of blanks and prizes, which are drawn out of wheels, one of which contains the numbers of the tickets, and the other the corresponding blanks and prizes. Besides the consideration that this, as well as all other kinds of gambling for money, tends to corrupt the public morals, it is also to be considered that the purchasers of the tickets are never permitted to play the game on fair and equal ground. The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly fair lottery; or one in which the whole gain compensated the whole loss; because the undertaker could make nothing by it. In lotteries the tickets are really not worth the price which is paid by the original purchasers, and yet they often sell in the market at a considerable advance: the vain hope of gaining some of the great prizes is the cause of this demand. In order to have a better chance for some of the large prizes, some people purchase several tickets, and others small shares in a still greater number. There is not, however, a more certain proposition in mathematics, than that the more tickets you adventure upon, the more likely you are to be a loser. Adventure upon all the tickets in the lottery and you lose for certain; and the greater the number of your tickets, the nearer you approach to this certainty.
The above is ſurely a juſt account of the nature and principles of a Lottery; yet it does not deſtroy the fact, that, diſtributed as the tickets always are among thouſands, there muſt be ſome gainers, and that, in ſpite of mathematics, there is a lucky number, which muſt draw the capital prize in the Plymouth Beach Lottery (without any deduction) of 12000 dollars. Both the Hiſtorical Dictionary and Lottery Tickets may be had at Cuſhing & Appleton's old ſtand, one door weſt of Central Building;—where BANK BILLS are exchanged.
Lottery at the celebrated "Wayside Inn" at Sudbury in 1760.
THE Managers of Sudbury Lottery, No. Two, hereby notify the Public, That they ſhall commence Drawing ſaid Lottery, on Friday the Thirtieth Day of May Inſtant, at the Houſe of Mr. William Bryant Inholder in ſaid Sudbury. ☞ A few Tickets are yet to be had of the Managers, and Samuel Hardcaſtle and the Printers hereof.
Boston Gazette, May, 1760.