Nora cast her eyes irresolutely down upon the ground and faltered for a second; then, with a sudden burst of firmness, she answered tremulously: ‘Yes, for ever.’
At the word, Harry bounded away like a wounded man from her side, and rushed wildly with tempestuous heart into his own bedroom. As for Nora, she walked quietly back, white, but erect, to her little boudoir, and when she reached it, astonished Aunt Clemmy by flinging herself with passionate force down at full length upon the big old sofa, and bursting at once into uncontrollable floods of silent, hot, and burning tears.
POPULAR LEGAL FALLACIES.[1]
BY AN EXPERIENCED PRACTITIONER.
LOTTERIES AND ART-UNIONS.
The laws of England relating to lotteries may conveniently be divided into three classes, according to the objects which are sought to be attained thereby. (1) The imposition of penalties. (2) The punishment of offenders as rogues and vagabonds. (3) The legalisation of art-unions. The inconsistent provisions of the Act of Parliament relating to the third class, with the tone of legislation within the first and second classes, have led to some curious misconceptions. For example, in Wales, especially in South Wales, and to a smaller extent in some counties of England, it is generally believed that a common raffle can be made quite legal by advertising it as being conducted upon art-union principles; although—as we shall presently show—there is no connection between the two, and therefore no ground for the supposition that the pretence implied in the words quoted has any real existence.
The pernicious effects of lotteries appear to have early been a subject of careful attention on the part of the legislature. To go no farther back than the year 1698, we find it recited that ‘several evil-disposed persons for divers years last passed have set up many mischievous and unlawful games called lotteries, not only in the cities of London and Westminster and in the suburbs thereof and places adjoining, but in most of the eminent towns and places in England and in the dominion of Wales, and have thereby most unjustly and fraudulently got to themselves great sums of money from the children and servants of several gentlemen, traders, and merchants, and from other unwary persons, to the utter ruin and impoverishment of many families, and to the reproach of the English laws and government, by colour of several patents or grants under the Great Seal of England for the said lotteries or some of them, which said grants or patents are against the common good, trade, welfare, and peace of His Majesty’s kingdoms.’ It was accordingly enacted that any person keeping, &c., any lottery either by dice, lots, cards, balls, or any other numbers or figures, should be liable to a penalty of five hundred pounds, one-third part thereof for the use of His Majesty, his heirs and successors; one other third part thereof to the use of the poor of the parish where such offence should have been committed; and the other third part thereof with double costs to the use of the informer suing for the same. In the year 1806, the latter part of the preceding enactment was altered to this extent—the whole of the penalty was to go to the Crown, and no proceedings were to be taken for recovery of penalties inflicted by any of the laws concerning lotteries except in the name and by the authority of the Attorney-general for the time being. Since the last-mentioned date, the proceedings for recovery of penalties under the former Act have been very rare, although the law stands thus to the present day.
It is somewhat remarkable that many of the enactments against lotteries have been contained in Acts of Parliament by which government lotteries were authorised, thus leading to the inference that the raising of money for the service of the state, which must necessarily lead to the same evils of gambling, &c., as the lotteries set up by the ‘evil-disposed persons’ against whom the former legislation was aimed, was of more importance than the cause of morality which had been sought to be served by the imposition of penalties so heavy. The persons who availed themselves of the advantages offered by the keepers of unauthorised lotteries were not allowed to go free from the danger of being proceeded against for penalties; but these penalties were much more moderate, being only twenty pounds for each offence.
The second branch of our subject—the punishment of keepers of lotteries as common rogues and vagabonds—had its origin in the year first mentioned, and has now become an ordinary part of the law applicable to the punishment of vagrancy, although it must be noted that there is no necessary connection between vagrancy as universally understood and this statutory definition. A man who is convicted of an offence against a certain law is held to be a rogue and vagabond, and is thereby rendered liable to imprisonment with hard labour for three calendar months; and if he should commit the offence specified, he is what the law calls him, although he should be a respectable tradesman, a clergyman, or a justice of the peace. There is nothing practically obsolete about this branch of the law. Seldom is Christmas allowed to pass over without some prosecutions under the Vagrants’ Act for raffles or some other forms of lotteries in some part of the kingdom or other; and the effect of this has been to render almost unknown in some towns and cities the drawings which were so numerous in the days of our youth. One form of petty lottery which has engaged the attention of the police at all times of the year is the insertion of small sums of money in packets of sweets and other articles principally sold to children, for which there have been several convictions within the last few years. If the principle be admitted that the moral effects of lotteries are pernicious, then it follows that this mode of instilling the gambling spirit into the tender minds of children is its most injurious manifestation, on account of its tendency to train up the children in the way in which they should not go; and the probability that the spirit thus implanted in their minds will be more fully developed as they grow up.
Besides the penalties and punishments provided for the conductors of and participants in lotteries, there is a distinct set of enactments which aim at the prevention of advertising lotteries, whether English or foreign. So far as the latter class is concerned, the law has no power to interfere with the persons implicated therein so long as they are without the jurisdiction of our courts. But if any person in the United Kingdom should endeavour to spread the knowledge of such schemes by allowing advertisements to be inserted in his newspaper or other periodical, or by printing and distributing notices relating thereto, then the law provides that he shall become liable to a penalty of fifty pounds besides full costs; and the same penalty applies to private lotteries which may have been established in this country.