“Have I deserved this from you two? for all
My pains at court, to get you each a patent.“Gilthead. For what?
“Meercraft. Upon my project of the forks.
“Sledge. Forks! What be they?
“Meercraft. The laudable use of forks,
Brought into custom here as they are in Italy,
To the sparing of napkins.”]
[1022] Fischer’s Reise nach Madrid, p. 238.
LOTTERY. TONTINE.
At present there are two kinds of lottery in Europe. One is called the Italian or Genoese lotto, or merely the lotto; the other is the common lottery well known in England. Of the former, which has been long proved to be attended with great deception, and must soon be universally acknowledged to be hurtful, I do not mean here to treat, but only of the latter, which at any rate may be honourable or harmless, if we do not take into account the delusion it occasions to credulous and ignorant people, by exciting hopes which have little probability in their favour. I however do not promise a complete history of this invention: it experienced so many changes before it acquired its present form, that to give a full account of them would be tiresome to me as well as to the reader.
I shall not either, as some have done, reckon among the first traces of lotteries every division of property made by lot, otherwise it might be said, that Joshua partitioned the promised land into lottery-prizes, before it was conquered. In my opinion the peculiarity of lotteries consists in this, that numbers are distributed gratuitously, or, as in our public lotteries, for a certain price, and it is then left to chance to determine what numbers are to obtain the prizes, the value of which is previously settled. The various conditions and changes invented by ingenuity to entice people to purchase shares, and to conceal and increase the gain of the undertakers, are not here taken into consideration, because they do not appear to be essential.
In the whole history of antiquity, I find nothing which has a greater resemblance to our lotteries than the congiaria of the Romans; and I am inclined to think that the latter furnished the first hint for the establishment of the former. Rich persons at Rome, as is well known, and particularly the emperors, when they wished to gain or to strengthen the attachment of the people, distributed among them presents, consisting of eatables and other expensive articles, which were named congiaria. In general, tokens or tickets called tesseræ[1023] were given out, and the possessors of these, on presenting them at the store or magazine of the donor, received those things which they announced. In many cases these tickets were distributed viritim, that is, to every person who applied for them; and in that case these donations had a resemblance to our distributions of bread, but not to our lotteries, in which chance must determine the number of those who are to participate in the things distributed.
But in the course of time it became customary to call the people together, and to throw among them, from a stage, the articles intended for distribution, in the same manner as money is scattered among the populace at the coronation of the emperor, and on other solemnities. Such things, in this case, were called missilia, and belonged to those who had the good fortune to catch them. But as oil, wine, corn and other articles of the like kind, could not be distributed by throwing them in this manner, and as some articles were so much injured by the too great eagerness of the people, that they could be of little or no use, tokens or tickets were thrown out in their stead. At first these were square pieces of wood or metal, but sometimes also balls of wood inscribed with the name of the article which the possessor was to receive from the magazine[1024]. Like bank-notes they were payable to the bearer; and those who had obtained tesseræ were allowed to transfer or to sell them to others. This is proved by a passage in Juvenal[1025], where allusion however is made only to the tesseræ frumentariæ, which were not thrown out, but distributed.
Imitations of these Roman congiaria, but indeed on a very reduced scale, have been employed in modern times by princes and princesses, in order to amuse themselves with distributing small presents to their courtiers. For this purpose various trinkets or toys are marked with numbers; these numbers are written upon separate tickets, which are rolled up and put into a small basket or basin. Each of the company then draws one out, and receives as a present the article marked with the same number. These small congiaria were formerly called in German glückstöpfe, or glückshäfen; and in the course of time the present lotteries took their rise from them.
In Italy, where commerce, as is well known, was first formed into a regular system, and where the principal mercantile establishments and useful regulations were invented, the merchants or shopkeepers, even in the middle ages, were accustomed, in order that they might sell their wares in a speedier manner and with more advantage, to convert their shops into a glücksbude, where each person for a small sum of money was allowed to draw a number from the glückstöpfe (jar of fortune), which entitled him to the article written upon it. At first governments gave themselves very little trouble about this mode of selling merchandise. But as the shopkeepers gained excessive profits, and cheated the credulous people by setting on their wares an extravagant price, which was concealed by the blanks, these glückshäfen were forbidden, or permitted only under strict inspection, and in the course of time on paying a certain sum to the poor, or to the sovereign. In Germany they are still retained at many of the annual fairs; but in most countries they are subject to many limitations.