In May, 1715, the proprietors of Sion gardens advertised the following singular method of selling deer from their park. They appointed the afternoons of Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, for killing those animals; when the public were admitted at one shilling each to see the operation, or they might purchase tickets from four to ten shillings, which entitled them, it is supposed, by way of lottery, to different parts of the beast,—as they say the quantity killed was to be divided into sixteen lots, and the first choice to be governed by the numbers on the tickets: a ten shilling ticket was entitled to a fillet; eight, a shoulder; seven, a loin, &c. If the full price of the deer was not received on a given day, the keeper held the money till that sum was obtained. They offered to sell whole deer, and to purchase as many as might be offered.[449]
Harburgh Lottery.
In 1723, the resentment of the house of commons was directed against the scheme of a lottery to be drawn at Harburgh, a town of Hanover on the Elbe, opposite Hamburgh, in the king’s German dominions. A committee inquired into this and other lotteries at that time on foot in London. The scheme pretended to raise a subscription for maintaining a trade between Great Britain and the king’s territories on the Elbe. It was a mysterious scene of iniquity, which the committee, with all their penetration, could not fully discover; but they reported, that it was an infamous, fraudulent undertaking, whereby many unwary persons had been drawn in, to their great loss: that the manner of carrying it on had been a manifest violation of the laws of the kingdom: that the managers and agents of this lottery had, without any authority, made use of his majesty’s royal name to countenance the infamous project, and induce his majesty’s subjects to engage or be concerned therein. A bill was brought in to suppress this lottery, and to oblige its managers to make restitution of the money they had received from the contributors. At the same time the house resolved, That John lord viscount Barrington had been notoriously guilty of promoting, abetting, and carrying on the fraudulent undertaking; for which offence he should be expelled the house.[450]
Bank Clerks’ Finesse.
On the 31st of August, 1731, a scene was presented which strongly marks the infatuation and ignorance of lottery adventurers. The tickets for the State Lottery were delivered out to the subscribers at the Bank of England; when the crowd becoming so great as to obstruct the clerks, they told them, “We deliver blanks to-day, but to-morrow we shall deliver prizes;” upon which many, who were by no means for blanks, retired, and by this bold stratagem the clerks obtained room to proceed in their business. In this lottery “her majesty presented his royal highness the duke with ten tickets.”[451]
Love, Death, and the Lottery.
Early in the reign of George II., the footman of a lady of quality, under the absurd infatuation of a dream, disposed of the savings of the last twenty years of his life in two lottery tickets, which proving blanks, after a few melancholy days, he put an end to his life. In his box was found the following plan of the manner in which he should spend the five thousand pound prize, which his mistress preserved as a curiosity:—