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value. Of course, the laws made for this purpose were readily and systematically broken. The smallest sums were risked, and the only effect of the laws against such purchases was that higher prices had to be paid to cover the risk of detection. We learn that 'all the efforts of the police were ineffectual for the suppression of these illegal proceedings, and for many years a great and growing repugnance was manifested in ,. Parliament to this method of raising any part of the public revenue. At length, in 1823, the last Act that was sanctioned by Parliament for the sale of lottery-tickets contained provisions for putting down all private lotteries, and for rendering illegal the sale in this kingdom of all tickets or shares of tickets in any foreign lottery--which latter provision is to this day extensively evaded.' This was written forty years ago, but might have been written to-day.
The simplest, and in many respects the best, form of lottery is that in which a number of articles are taken as prizes, their retail prices added together, and the total divided into some large number of parts, the same number of tickets being issued at the price thus
indicated. Suppose, for instance, the prizes amount in value to 200l., then a thousand tickets might be sold at 4s. each, or 4,000 at is. each, or a larger number at a correspondingly reduced price. In such a case the lottery is strictly fair, supposing the prizes in good salable condition. The person who arranges the lottery gains neither more nor less than he would if he sold the articles separately. There may be a slight expense in arranging the lottery, but this is fully compensated by the quickness of the sale. The arrangement, I say, is fair; but I do not say it is desirable, or even that it should be permissible. Advantage is taken of the love of gambling, innate in most men, to make a quick sale of goods which otherwise might have lain long on hand. Encouragement is given to a tendency which is inherently objectionable if not absolutely vicious. And so far as the convenience is concerned of those who collectively buy (in fact) the prizes, it manifestly cannot be so well suited as though those only had bought who really wanted the articles, each taking the special article he required. Those who buy tickets want to get more than their money's worth. Some of them, if not all, are believers in their own good luck, and expect to get more than they pay for. They are willing to get, in this way, something which very likely they do not want, something therefore which will be worth less to them in reality than the price for which it is justly enough valued in the list of prizes.
Unfortunately those who arrange lotteries of this sort for mere trade purposes (they are not now allowed
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