New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1866-09-14
THE FOOL AND HIS MONEY

iustly proud not content with having the Dest
country the best government, the bravest army the
finest generals, the greatest navy, Admiral Faragut
Hoes Printing Press, the Mississippi River, and
the New-Rochelle Blackberry, Niagara Falls MI
Morse and Dr. Franklin, two inventors OF ohloroorm,
three Websters and forth and FORTH an internn
able list of great names in every department; NOT
content with this altitude in excellence we are strV-
ing to reach an equal eminence in badness, and are
lust now turning our attention to the getting up OF
lotteries, the mere reading of whose schemes" as
they are well called is calculated to reduce the hearer
to that state of supeed asonshment that bis pockets
can be picked with impunity by the unscrupulouS
inventors of these fraudulent devices.
The reader may think we are in jocular mood,
but We are only 80 far moved to laughter as man
NAV be who sees that even wckedness has ludcrous
sde and that painful as it may be to see innocence
duped, it is not always equally painful to our unre-
generate nature to geedness overreached by cum
ming But, we are by no means disposed to treat
these lotteries as jest, however little to be ped we
NAV think the greater number Of those who buy
tickets. We do not forget that the smaller number,
however small in proportion it may be, must always
be made up of those whose very ignorance supposes
COnulLlOu OF lll6 ID WulCu IOoo VI ehN PA'NN
ticket is seriously felt and to whom the possession OF
line engraving of any picture under the sum- must
seem mockery when they compare 1t with what they
have parted with, or with what they hoped for And
yet it is very difficult to know just how to attack
these organized swindles so as to squelch them ell
fectually They are most carefully planned in every
instance TO elude existing laws made for the very pur
pose of REFRESHING them; and they assume by their
pretensons high place among the agencies OF social
refinement The most delicate euphemisms vail their
inherent rascaty and under the name Of Art Unions
Art Associations or Gift Enterprises they conceal the
fact that they are simply lotteries open to all the OBJ
iectons and liable to all the censure that belongs to
those traps for the unwary. If we hold our tongue
about them, and suffer them, day after day, to lay
their nets without warning we are reproached by
the gulls that they pentifully make, with ndIer-
ence to the public welfare ii, moved by wrath, we
try to pillory the rogues they mpudently face us,
and threaten US with libel And we are too often
tempted to let them go their ways, and plumber unob-
structed content with keeping our own pockets but
toned when we go by their DOORS and with warning
our young and green acquaintance in private TO DO
the same.
But there really is no reason Why 80 many people
should be victimiIed by these thieves, as we know
there are in country like where we boast OF
widely dhused intelligence and education. How can
any man who thinks all how any man who reads
his newspaper daily and the oftrepeated stories
ofthe tricks of scoundres small and great, be ready
to swallow with eager appetite similar bait when it
ia offered to himi Think of man Of ordinary inteli-
genoo perusng seriously any one Of these preposterous
schemes which are now being advertised all over
the country persstenty, and at such an enormous
expense, and then deliberately going and purchasing
ticket as fhe believed all the prospectus has todhm
He will turn away from beggar who runs of her glib
roll of lies some Of which, must at least, judging by
the patent rags and leanness be founded in truth he
will give a sodier-who tries to support, by the sale
of books or newspapers, the miserable manned life the
enemies Of his country have spared-the cold shoulder
and perhaps the insulting word but the stories Of the
lottery.m meet with his respectful attention 1t
seems wonderful but so does every species of faulty,
to the cool and the sane and perhaps nothing is more
idle than to attempt to reason with those who seem
determined to be deluded. when woman hest
tates' says somebody, she is lost. When man
hesates, he wishes TO be lost" And the man who is
taken in by these gift enterprises, or lotteries called
by whatever name, only declares that he hankered
after the pleasure Of being swinded, and ought to be
congratulated on the completeness of his qualification,
rather than pted for the extent of his loss.
But, some reader with more than childlike inno
cence will ask: AFTER all, suppose one does get the
great prize Let him open his and listen for an
answer to the rumors that already begin to from
the West:
THE firm Of Ludlam Hale Co. conductors of the Grsa.
North Gift Concert failed on Monday the 18th and
those who invested minus their money and gins One OF
the firm had absconded with 5000 and the Others were pre-
pairing TO leave when the police arrested them"
And, already, from Chicago we hear report that
panic has spread among the purchasers of tickets to
the great scheme there and that it is seriously
to have no drawing made. Any day this
bubble may burst, as Others have done before it, and
it certainly will add nothing to the public confidence
to be told that it is not yet known whether soandso
who is abundantly able to do it, oH consent to pay
back to the ticket-buyer the money they have in
vested, in case the scheme is abandoned The cool
impudence with which these bogus promises are made
to presumably asinine public, is as nothing to the
cool impudence with which these promises broken
But after all, it has nothing to do with the right
wrong of the matter whether these lotteries
red out in accordance with the published programmes
or not They owe their success principally to two
causes; one is the light estimation in which Amer
cans hold money, and which is quite easily compat
bic with the worship Of the dollar which, if you WILL
is their characteristics the other is the eager haste to
be rich, which We share in common with the rest Of
the world We think nothing Of dollar, in one
sense, though far too much of it in another; aud We
arc, one. and all, infected with the wild delu- !
sion that fortunes are constantly being made |
by chance, by accident, by luck, by any means, |
in short except hard working and plain living, |
and until economy becomes more popular virtue in |
America than it is at present, we suppose there is