The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1859-08-21

were drawn by lot The truth IL. that they are
regulated by chances and circumstances as va
riable and uncertain as the drawing Of the blanks
and prizes in lottery.
In 1912 lottery was granted by the English
Parliament in aid Of the Virginian Company,
which founded the first Anglo-Saxon colony in
the New World-that which may be regarded az
the nucleus of the United States. The cause Of
American independence was helped along by the
same kind of aid and the practice of lotteries pre-
vailed In every State till comparatively recent
period, when, partly owing to the new lights Of
evangelical religion pretending to be better than
our honest forefathers, and the fact Of those
who directed lotteries finding a more pro.
fitable business In other games Of chance,
such as stocks and banks and railroads,
lotteries have been abolished in every State ex-
oept three. Lotteries were too honest for the
rogues who wanted to make rapid fortunes by
the swindling operations carried on in stocks.
So recently were lotteries legal and moral in this
State, that Horace Greeley began life as an edi-
tor of lottery paper, called the ConsatMionalist
By what process of spiritual alchemy does that
which was moral and pious few years ago be-
come now immoral and impious?
The general abandonment Of the business has
thrown IT completely into the hands Of a few
persons, who are making enormous fortunes by
the monopoly which the laws give them in those
States which have legalized it; for, SO long as
there is lottery legally open in any State, the
tickets will be bought and sold in all the other
States, in despite Of every law to the contrary
In this city alone the agents of these lotteries
realize annually million Of dollars. The present
outcry against lotteries is the most absurd and
hypocritical ever uttered by the Pharisees. When
the lotteries were wanted to pay off State debts
or to build churches, they were excellent things;
but when men try to make money with them for
their own benefit, then their character becomes
changed. During the last twenty-five years. in
those States where lotteries have been abolished,
there has been greater amount of rascality and
roguery than was ever witnessed before.
In lotteries properly regulated by the State
there is more fair play for the man who invests
his money in them than for those who buy rail-
road stocks, or deposit their money in rotten
banks. There is no more immortality in fair
lottery than there is in life, fire and marine in
suIance companies, which are all founded on the
doctrine Of chances, like lotteries. For instance
in the case Of life insurance, if man should
die in the first year after he has obtained poll
cy, the company loses, and his surviving rela-
tives gain by it. But should the insured live
very long he pays three times over what the
company are bound to pay at his death. Thus
be loses, and the company wins If a housethat
has been insured is burned, or ship insured goes
down, the insured is fortunate and the insurance
companies are unlucky; but if a man has in
sured his house, year after year, all his life, or
another man his chips, voyage after voyage, and
neither suffer loss by fire nor water then these men
have been unfortunate in paying so much money
to insurance companies for which they have re-
ceived no equivalent. In this case the compa-
nies have been fortunate, and the chances have
come out in their favor. Now we ask who lifts
his voice against the immortality of insurance
companies? Are not members of the church
the very pillars of piety-among the presidents
and directors? Life itself is lottery. One man
succeeds and another fails in business owing fire.
quent]y to good or bad fortune more than to any
superior industry or ability of the one above the
other. Often a mans whole destiny is affected
~ going to his home or to his Office on certain
lay through one street rather than another. So
much are men the creatures OF circumstances
which they cannot control. The cry against lot
cries, therefore, is neither sustained by piety
,or common aense-neither by philosophy, mo-
:ality nor religion. 1t is chiefly raised by men
who want to divert the money from these chan
nels and to bring grist to their own mills.