Some years passed before another state lottery took place. It is believed that one noticed by Stow in his “Annales,” occurring in 1585, was the second. “A lotterie,” chronicles Stow, “for marvellous, rich, and beautiful armour was begunne to be drawne at London in S. Paules Churchyard, at the great West gate (a house of timber and board being there erected for that purpose) on S. Peter’s Day in the morning, which lotteries continued in drawing day and night, for the space of two or three dayes.”
Our first two Stuart kings do not appear to have employed the lottery as a means of raising money. James I. granted a lotterie in favour of the colony of Virginia. The prizes consisted of pieces of plate. It was drawn in a house built for the purpose near the West end of St. Paul’s. The drawing commenced on the 29th June, and was completed by 20th July, 1612. It is said that a poor tailor won the first prize, viz. “foure thousand Crownes in fayre plate,” and that it was conveyed to his humble home in a stately style. The lottery gave general satisfaction, it was plainly and honestly conducted, and knights, esquires and leading citizens were present to check any attempt at cheating. During the reign of Charles I., in 1630, the earliest lottery for sums of money took place.
The Puritans do not seem to have had any decided aversion to obtaining money by means of the lottery. During the Commonwealth it was resorted to for getting rid of forfeited Irish estates.
At the restoration the real gaming spirit commenced and caused much misery and ruin. The lottery sheet was set up in many public places, and the Crown received a large revenue from this source. The financial arrangement of a lottery was simple, the state offered a certain sum of money to be repaid by a larger. We learn from Chambers’s “Book of Days,” that “The government gave £10 in prizes for every share taken, on an average. A great many blanks, or of prizes under £10 left of course, a surplus for the creation of a few magnificent prizes wherewith to attract the unwary public.” It was customary for city firms known as lottery-office-keepers to contract for the lottery, and they always paid more than £10 per share, usually £16 was paid, which left the government a handsome profit. The contractors disposed of the tickets to the public for £20 to £22 each. The shares were frequently divided by the contractors into halves, quarters, eights, and sixteenths, and this was done at advanced prices. It was out of the clients for aliquot parts that the lottery-office-keepers reaped a heavy harvest. They were men who understood the art of advertising, and used pictures, poetry, and prose in a most effective manner. Our own collections of lottery puffs is curious and interesting. Some very good examples are reproduced in “A History of English Lotteries,” by John Ashton, and published by the Leadenhall Press, London, in 1893.
DRAWING A LOTTERY IN THE GUILDHALL, 1751
It is related that one firm of lottery ticket contractors gave an old woman fifty pounds a year to join them as a nominal partner on account of her name being Goodluck.
We have stated that at the commencement of lotteries they were drawn near St. Paul’s, subsequently the City Guildhall was the place, and later Cooper’s Hall, Basinghall Street, was used for this purpose. Before the day appointed for the drawing of a lottery, public preparations had been made for it at Somerset House. Each lottery ticket had a counterpart and a counterfoil, and when the issue of the tickets was complete, an announcement was made, and a day fixed for the counterparts of the tickets to be sealed up in a box, and any ticket-holder might attend and see that his ticket was included with others in a box, and it was placed in a strong box and locked up with seven keys, then sealed with seven seals. Two other boxes, locked and sealed as the one with tickets, contained the prize tickets and blanks. These were removed with ceremony to the place of drawing. Four prancing horses would draw, on their own sledges, the wheels of fortune, each of which were about six feet in diameter. By their side galloped a detachment of Horse Guards. Arrived at their destination, the great wheels were placed at each end of a long table, where the managers of the lottery took their seats. With care the tickets were emptied into the wheels, and finally they were set in motion. Near each wheel stood a boy, usually from the Blue-Coat School. Simultaneously the lads put into the wheels their hands, each drawing a paper out. These they hold up, and an officer, called the proclaimer, calls out in a loud voice the number, say sixty! another responds a prize or blank, as the case may be, and the drawing thus proceeds until it is finished, often a long and tedious piece of work. If even a blank is first drawn, the owner of the ticket received a prize of a thousand pounds, and a similar sum was won by the owner of the last ticket drawn. The boys were well rewarded for their trouble, and on the whole the lotteries appear to have been fairly conducted.