We have not undertaken to give an account of all the lotteries of which we have seen advertisements, as our limits would not admit of it, even if it could be made interesting to those who like to read about such matters; New England alone would fill a large volume. We will name only a few of the more prominent lotteries,—the Land Bank, in 1759; the Pavement on Boston Neck, the same year. Then there was the Charlestown lottery, the Hatfield Bridge, Sudbury, the Amoskeag Canal, the South Hadley Canal, the Philanthropic, the Kennebec, the Dartmouth College, the Gloucester Road, the Plymouth Beach, etc. All these, of course, were public lotteries, and were managed by the first men in the community. In relation to private lotteries it would now be difficult to ascertain the facts. There must have been a great number of these; probably they were not always honestly conducted. We have heard that there were shops where the inexperienced were supplied with bogus tickets,—blanks of some drawn lottery. Bad men, unfortunately, are to be found in all kinds of business; but we know that in Salem all the men whose names we have mentioned were among the very best in the community.
Although laws are now in force in Massachusetts and some other States against lotteries, there appears to be no essential difference, as far as the morality of the thing is concerned, between the old lottery and the modern raffle,—and indeed a certain species of stock gambling, it seems to us, is worse than either in its moral effects. After the year 1826, or thereabout, lotteries appear to have become unpopular, and laws were passed prohibiting them. Their unprofitableness, moreover, seems then to have been more clearly seen. As we have already said, there had always been some who saw the evils which must result from such schemes. Notably among prominent men who in Massachusetts used their influence against them were John Hancock,[1] of Revolutionary fame, and afterwards governor of the Commonwealth, and Peter C. Brooks, a distinguished merchant of Boston, father-in-law of Edward Everett. The "Salem Gazette" of Sept. 16, 1794, says: "Considering the acknowledged immoral tendency of Lotteries, it is astonishing how much is said in the Boston papers in favor of that which our Legislature has lately instituted for Harvard College. Our late worthy Governor Hancock, in a public address to the General Court, gave his testimony against this species of gambling, so calculated to ensnare and injure those classes of worthy citizens who are guiltless of that vice in its common form."
[1] Although we have seen lottery tickets signed by Hancock earlier in life.
In some foreign countries and in a few of the States of our Union lotteries are still lawful; yet we believe there is a growing feeling against them. But if stock gambling is destined to take the place of the lottery, we do not think much will be gained by the change. The losses by lotteries were generally in small sums, and could be better borne by the adventurers than the entire loss of property, health, and reputation which is now too apt to follow a large proportion of the speculative stock operations. In the lottery, too, the risks were generally so small that the ticket-buyer alone suffered; whereas now, whole families are often involved in financial ruin, if not in disgrace, by the operations of a father, brother, or near relative. But we will say no more on this point, as it is a consideration foreign to the object of this book.
Thus far we have written mainly of American lotteries; as it is not our intention to take an exhaustive view of the subject, we will merely say, in reference to foreign countries, that lotteries were instituted in England in 1567, and abolished by Act of Parliament in 1823, although allowed until 1826, when the last drawing of a legal lottery took place. During this period they were patronized by all classes,—royalty, the nobility, gentry, and commoners. The first lottery was for the repairs of harbors and fortifications. The drawing took place at the "west door of St. Paul's Church." In 1612 King James I. granted a lottery for the "English Colonies in Virginia, ... to be held at the west end of St. Paul's," and "one Thomas Sharplys, a tailor, drew the chief Prize, which was 4000 crowns in fair plate."
To this day the lottery flourishes in most of the chief cities in Europe, and lottery tickets are vended in many shops as well as in regular offices. The Cologne Cathedral, as is well known, was only recently finished by the aid of a lottery. Lotteries are upheld, we believe, by the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, and many of the priests aid in disposing of the tickets,—at least so we have been told.
The sum of the whole matter as regards this country is that a good work was undoubtedly accomplished through the agency of the lottery in the early days of our national history. By its aid schools, colleges, and charities were founded, bridges, roads, and canals were constructed. In our time public opinion is, of course, as it ought to be, against gambling in any form; but although our ways are almost always thought to be more honest, it is a question, after all, whether we are really more upright than our fathers, who sometimes engaged in transactions that are condemned by modern society, but who, on the other hand, knew nothing of "defaulted" railroad bonds, of "wild cat" oil companies, or of "watered" mining stocks. It is easy enough to
"Compound for sins [we] are inclined to,
By damning those [we] have no mind to."
