On the 23d of November, 1741, “the drawing of the Bridge Lottery began at Stationers’ Hall.—The Craftsman of the 28th says, that every 100,000l. laid out in a lottery puts a stop to the circulation of at least 300,000l., and occasions almost a total suppression of trade.”[460]
In June, 1743, “the price of lottery tickets having risen from 10l. to 11l. 10s. some persons, who probably wanted to purchase, published a hint to the unwary adventurers, that they gamed at 50 per cent. loss; paying, at that price, 2s. 6d. to play for 5s.; the money played for being only three pound, besides discount and deductions.”[461]
Ticket stuck in the Wheel.
On the 5th of January, 1774, at the conclusion of drawing the State Lottery at Guildhall, No. 11,053, as the last drawn ticket, was declared to be entitled to the 1000l., and was so printed in the paper of benefits by order of the commissioners. It was besides a prize of 100l. But after the wheels were carried back to Whitehall and there opened, the ticket No. 72,248 was found sticking in a crevice of the wheel. And, being the next drawn ticket after all the prizes were drawn, was advertised by the commissioners’ order as entitled to the 1000l., as the last drawn ticket: “which affair made a great deal of noise.”[462]
A Peer’s Substitute for Lotteries.
On the bill, for a lottery to succeed the preceding, being brought into the house of lords, a peer said, that such measures always were censured by those that saw their nature and their tendency. “They have been considered as legal cheats, by which the ignorant and the rash are defrauded, and the subtle and avaricious often enriched. They have been allowed to divert the people from trade, and to alienate them from useful industry. A man who is uneasy in his circumstances, and idle in his disposition, collects the remains of his fortune, and buys tickets in a lottery, retires from business, indulges himself in laziness, and waits, in some obscure place, the event of his adventure. Another, instead of employing his stock in a shop or a warehouse, rents a garret in a private street, and make it his business, by false intelligence, and chimerical alarms, to raise and sink the price of tickets alternately, and takes advantage of the lies which he has himself invented. If I, my lords, might presume to recommend to our ministers the most probable method of raising a large sum for the payment of the troops of the electorate, I should, instead of the tax and lottery now proposed, advise them to establish a certain number of licensed wheel-barrows, on which the laudable trade of thimble and button might be carried on for the support of the war, and shoe-boys might contribute to the defence of the house of Austria, by raffling for apples.”