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fore them unfolded a dreadful scene of misery, vice, and ruin, brought on by means of lotteries; and they strongly recommended their entire abolition." ""* Such is the testimony of an author who professes to give their true history. From the same source it appears that an annual revenue has been derived from them of from 300,000 to 600,0007, and at an expense to the public, in the last case, of 1,200,000l. Their history shows them to be, what we might expect, the most enormous and unprofitable of all taxes.

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Such have been the terrors of the system abroad, and such, sooner or later, must the experience of this country be, unless prevented by a timely extinction of the cause. The system is every where, in its effects, the same. If we have not suffered in proportion to our fellows, it is because the intelligence and general prosperity of our population forbids the same efficacy of evil. If we shall not, in the end, have the same melancholy investigations before our houses of assembly, it will be because the better wisdom of the people has not suffered the land to be over-run.

In this view, it is certainly desirable, that a document may be drawn up for general inspection, to exhibit, if I may so term it, the statistics of lotteries; the principal objects of which should be, their annual number and amount, the number of those who have derived from them their constant occupation, and the number and classes of those who have an interest as adventurers. This would be one important step towards proving the magnitude of the evil, and exciting public attention to search for a remedy: when it was seen that the capital must be reckoned by millions, and the adventurers by hundreds of thousands. If this should seem too formidable an ac

*Edinburgh Encyclopedia.

count of the matter, let me beg you to look around and number among the crowd those whom you have known, at one time or another, to be implicated in a drawing. Then look at the deluge of advertisements and schemes pouring in upon us both at home and from abroad. In a neighbouring state, not remarkable for its size or population, there might be numbered lately twenty-three of these evils together. I have cast my eye upon an article which states, that almost every county in Virginia has a petition for its particular lottery; and in New-York, where there are drawings monthly, it is stated that there are more than 160 offices. We have lotteries for schools and for bridges, for colleges and monuments, lotteries for churches and lotteries for Bishops. Religion, which has so clean escaped from the pollutions of the old world as to abhor the connexion of church and state, has found in this freer hemisphere a new ally. In this connexion we may hope for the building up of the desolations of Zion, and, if things go on happily, may live to behold our waste villages with a church at one end for the support of religion, and a lottery office at the other for the support of the minister.

A second objection to lotteries, which ought not to be overlooked in the proposed inquiry, is found in the extravagant hopes and desires for sudden wealth which they create, to the check of industry and ruin of morals. The evils from this source are widely different from the former, in as much as those have respect to a man's outward circumstances, while these affect his habits of thinking and acting. A day spent idly is lost, but how much is the loss enhanced, if habits have been weakened which it was of consequence to maintain. If truth has, in any instance, been disregarded, criminality is incurred, and

of course, misery; but the deepest consequence to the offender lies here that he has unlinked the chain which bound him to integrity and virtue. By the same argument we ought to consider, that the lottery adventurer, having lost time, labor and money, has laid but half his account with misfortune until he can tell how much has been wasted on the score of contented expectations, and how much in the ability to pursue a course of uniform and rational effort.

There cannot be a maxim plainer than, that a man, in the common round of affairs, will regulate his desires by his expectations and his actions by his desires. Set before him an object that must be gained, and the only means of gaining it, and he will take up his line of march, whatever be the labours of the way. The best, and indeed the only prosperous state of mind, for him who wishes to rise to opulence, is, not to expect great accessions from momentary efforts, and miracles from human means, but to moderate the effect to the cause, and measure success by the probabilities of experience. This principle kept in view, few men, probably, will find cause to blame what they call, their fortune. Yet a sure principle, like this, advances to its purpose by a laborious though pleasant progress. Could a short cut be found to the end, a highway less beset with toil, it would be too inviting to be left untried. This, precisely, a lottery offers; and the adventurer rushes into it with the eagerness of unsatisfied enterprise. But the trouble is, he has been directed wrong. It does not lead him to the objects of desire, and it is a heavy task to retrace his steps, and find that the flowery road has lured away all relish for the thorny. On most other subjects men will bound their expectations, in some sort or shape, by reason. But, on this, all prudential rules are laid

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aside, and never called for. been shown, already, at how great a disadvantage the adventurer plays the game, even for the chance of repossessing the value of his bargain. To estimate the chance for a considerable prize, the disadvantage must be multiplied a hundred to one; and yet a prize is expected. Each one thinks that he may be the favourite of fortune. Tis true he may; and, with the same amount of probable occurrence, he may be made a Duke to-morrow, by the discovery in his veins of some drop of British noble blood. If we had not the fact before our eyes we should not expect, that men would reason so delusively. But the

truth is, there is a charm in the idea of a great change of circumstances which shall transport a man at once from the necessity of laborious exertion to sudden independence. To be a poor man to-day, but tomorrow in possession of all that heart can wish, is an idea too enchanting to be dispensed with. The trifling sum at which this great possible benefit is offered cannot be withheld; even though it should be the price of those loaves of bread which a suffering family are in want of. And when the disappointment comes, and all the hopes have turned to air, it will be well if no deeper harm than present unhappiness be the consequence. The danger is, that discontent will seize upon the faculties, and urge them either to repair the loss by a repetition of the hazard, or to gain what fortune would not give, by arts which virtue cannot approve.

I can show a man who was once induced to try in his own mind the power of that charm; and to learn whether it could be dissolved by a complete knowledge of the folly which hangs its hopes upon a tick

et.

The experiment, you will say, could have but one result; it was impossible for any special phenomcna to be brought out by so slight

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a cause. No such thing. wheel of fortune is not more giddy than the head of an adventurer. It was impossible to exclude, and it would be impossible to relate, the projects which clustered around the splendid perhaps that was then in agitation. Long pondered plans seemed just in execution, and spread out before the mind's eye with wonderful distinctness. A possibility was long kept in sight till it retained but in part its shadowy nature. And the fabric which rose by such a process it was proved, in this case at least, that philosophy could not tear down; till sober fact by a touch dispelled it. It might be compared to those conceptions in the dark, that Stewart speaks of, which a man cannot scare off until he has come up to the object that gave the illusion.

It is upon the poorer classes of society that the effect of these visionary projects is most severely felt; because they are least informed of the slender chances of succeeding, and because success has to them its greatest relative importance. To a fortune already ample the addition of a few thousands is no specially overwhelming event; but to a man whose means are bouuded by the limit of a few paternal acres, or whose treasures lie in hardy sinews and a daily vocation, it seems like a state of superior being. The fallacies of expectation are therefore so much the broader, and the miseries of ill success the deeper. Besides, the loss; in his case, brings with it actual suffering. To the rich it may be nothing to have sunk a trifle; but to him that trifle was the means of comfort. Now, to consider closely what effects may follow,— there is one principle of action only by which the happiness and respectability of our less opulent classes can be secured. That

principle is a sober and contented disposition to labour. A principle

of economy both of time and property, which is satisfied with saving what it can, and bearing what little inconveniences it must. Contentment is itself so much a virtue, and so allied to other virtues, that where it dwells it preserves the morals pure, and even elevates the mind above temporal reverses. It is a temper opposite to this-a desire to rove in search of something better than the situation will admit, that leads to misery in many forms. It is this too often which withdraws attention from that which can be done to that which cannot; till the wreck of character and fortunes is the consequence. It is likely that this man, if he had fixed his eyes long enough upon the dazzling project to have staked a single hazard in the wheel, found a diminished attraction in the everyday concerns of business. game went on, there was less and less time to be devoted to them. The bad luck of one hazard must be replaced by another and another, till the pressure of necessity opened his eyes to the solid good which he had bartered for a dream. He is now well prepared for the temptations of vice.

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The road of contented mediocrity lies too far from his direction, and whatever present means may offer to retrieve his fortunes, or drown his cares, that, most likely, he will seize upon. It is true that this full accomplishment of ruin is not often witnessed at home; we must take the burden of the history from those lands where a dense crowd of suffering population stands ready to grasp at every hope which promises relief.* But the tendency, in all lands, is one; this truth a straggling case among ourselves now and then announces. The compassion of read

* In one of the late investigations before the nation of Great Britain, it was stated, that the Lottery and gambling adventures of one individual produced SIXTEEN SUICIDES annually.

ers was but lately very strongly appealed to, by the account of an individual at the bar of the police in New-York who had spent in lotteries a handsome fortune and never gained a prize worth naming. For what cause he stood there I do not know; but the painful thought could not but arise, that he had passed through an admirable training for suicide, or for robbery.

For so much virtue lost and misery won it would be natural to expect some recompence, in those few cases in which fortune meets her votary with smiles instead of frowns. If the dangers of adventure are so entirely to be deprecated, on the ground of disappointment, there ought to be some great balancing benefit in the event of success. We will, then, turn the subject to this light. The luckless individual whom we once traced to the confines of wretchedness may now be looked at, holding his course under a more favourable gale, and crowned with the attainment of his desires. We wish him happiness; but we follow him with solicitude. We hope, at least, that he will take in prudence for a pilot when the tide shall run too strong.

It must be seen that this is a change from which society has no benefits to gain. To them wealth only brings advantage in the hands of a wise and generous possessor. But of the proper use of wealth this man knows nothing. It is probable that he will either hoard it with a narrow fondness, or distribute it with prodigality. In either event, it had as well been hidden in the ocean. to the individual, whatever he may think of it, he is dangerously beset. For the temptations which abundance brings he is wholly unprepared. He has in fact, been taken from a station to which his experience and capacity were suited, to one for which they are not. Riches are not, of course, a benefit. How

As

few are the men who are able, even with that knowledge of their real powers of conferring happiness which a slow accumulation brings, to derive from their possession any solid benefit. And if, in the hands of these men, their influence is known to be uncertain, what shall be thought of his situation who plunges into the midst of their temptations and responsibility without a thought of precaution. It may be generally foreseen, that, in the same manner as a servant lifted to the throne is almost of course a tyrant, so he will be a prodigal or a miser.

The system therefore, on the one side or the other, has no happy tendencies to boast. Mischief lies to the right hand and to the left, and surrounds it with an atmosphere of evil into which no one may venture on the strength either of success or failure. It is willingly admitted that there are solitary cases in which an accidental benefit has been derived. It will not be denied that, at this time, or that, a prize has come so opportunely as to have restored to independence, families which misfortune had suddenly depressed. But I would no more count a fact of this description, among a multitude of the contrary, worthy to change a general principle of conduct, than a mariner would mark a channel lined with reefs as safe, because through that one vessel had escaped in a storm.

There is an additional influence of the lottery system which deserves attention. It respects the operation of a lottery considered as a

transaction which has effect upon the distribution of property among the members of society; a subject which lies at the foundation of many private duties, as well as public operations of benevolence. In this respect I lay it down, that lotteries are the reverse of all our salutary institutions.

The distinction of society into

classes, arising from the different distribution of wealth, might justly be considered an appointment of divine Providence, for the good of the world. The orders of richer and less opulent, more powerful and more dependent, are indispensable to the existence of those relations which unite men in the bonds of mutual advantage. In a perfectly equal condition of the world, perhaps men would give praise to the inventor of a system which should break up the common stock into individual possessions of less or greater magnitude. But, in the actual state of things, the thing to be desired lies on the other side. The lines of demarkation are already too distinct; the higher classes elevated to an opulence which gives the power to oppress; the lower reduced to a dependence which creates misery. And a continuance of the same relative condition is insured by the very circumstances of our race. Misfortune and ignorance will keep down multitudes, and foresight, or a happy combination of events, will centre wealth in others. The policy of a benevolent and wise man will, therefore, lead him to equalize, and not to break up. In accordance with this view, no sight is more admirable than a man of wealth diffusing his abundance among his fellow-beings; a man who, by wisdom and economy, gathers power, and then like the sun, throws it all around him. To the same end tends charity, which takes of the treasures of the rich and gives to the poor. The same purpose is extended into the business of the mercantile world, where by the intervention of insurance, the equalizing principle is made to distribute the losses of an individual among large bodies, on which its pressure is not felt. By all these operations, the inequalities among men are not abolished, but they become less wide; and, at least,

there is an agreement in this, that the action proceeds, throughout, in the same direction, namely, from the more powerful to the weaker, from the abundant to the needy. A lot tery acts directly the other way. It is an invention to collect from small sources wealth which it throws, in a large mass, into the hands of a few. few. Its action is from the weak to the strong. No matter if the poor gain their proportion of the prizes. The proportion which comes back they have always more than paid for; and it comes precisely in the form in which they do not want it, a form of accumulations, and not of diffusion. Just as if the dews of night were collected to a torrent which should drown the valley, but leave the plains all sterile.

This argument will have its weight with all who feel themselves attached to the free institutions of this country. Our own people we are apt to regard as the happiest on the globe. If they are so, it is, in part, to be attributed to those principles of equality which have descended to us from our fathers; to our entirely equal privileges, and our tolerably equal state of society. Here blessings, free as the air we breathe, circulate around our regions. Here, property has gained something which approaches to its most happy distribution. Few can possess an overgrown estate, and few are compelled to live in want. Lotteries, if we will permit them, will help us change these circumstances of our people. They can furnish the allurements that will aid us, if we wish, to draw away the substance of our lower classes, and transfer it to the pockets of the rich; in short, to subvert one among the happiest influences of those free principles which are the boast of our republic. Let, then, our republic look with suspicion on those arts and systems which degrade the spirit of her people; destroy the

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