Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1867-07-23
The Moral of Lotteries. -McGregor Prize
Concert.

AiNO ~. l., IuS DTlCh UlUch kalueu
at $40, 900. was drawn by ticket No
Is, 437, held by Miss Hannah Krugen-
bacher, of Boscobel, Wis. Miss X. was
in town when her good luck was
announced, and heard it with pleas
ure of course, but without demon
stration of excessive joy. She is
German girl of excellent character,
much personal beauty, and very mod
crate circumstances. Every body re-
joices in her good fortune. Ticket
IS, 731, bought by G. R. Green, OF
Boscobel, Wis, took the "a prize;
ticket IL, 46S, bought by l. Stanley,
of Lime Springs, Iowa, drew a piano
forte; Hooser, of PotsvilIe, drew a
city lot in McGregor. Ticket 10, 1863,
bought by Rollin Smith, of FiDni-
more, Wis, took the Sd prize.
Lottery successes result from no
degree OF intelligence, skill or man.
agement. Investments are made in
lottery schemes from an almost hui
man nature for gambling and not from
any desire for good. Evil thoughts
drive persons to the lottery for prizes
at the expense Of somebody else.
Persons who draw prizes have to
persuade themselves by false reasons
ing that the drawn property is theirs.
1t is as easy for the gambler at faro
or any other financier in the chapter
of accidents to reason that his prizes
won are his rightful property. The
whole thing of lotteries is wrong
and mischievous, and invariably of
vicious effect upon winners as well as
lottery dealers. The exception is
rarely one in a hundred in which
the lottery made fortune fails TO ruin
the drawer, and in most cases ruin
several ofhis or her friends-at least
make them half way fools or plunge
them into idleness, dissipation and
the calamities following in the train.
1t is the same with all gambling, un.
der whatever name known.
The lottery enterprise has a very
good and moralizing effect upon those
who fail to draw anything. Its
depletions keeps them poor and in
want, compels them to honest indus
try and scant living therefore, de-
prives them of demoralising luxuries.
But once let any person make a draw,
and he is a goner. AS general rule
better he had drawn and swallowed
a dose of any deadly poison.
But, we are pointed to the man
who drew the Chicago Opera House
in the Crosby lottery. In this case
the drawer was Of class of men SO
fixed in habits and life as to be scarce
ly a subject for gambling depravity.
1t may follow however that the event
may mark a period next between vir-
tue and vice in his life-we have not
a doubt in the life Of his family; and
we should even now risk all the points
of our argument in the hands OF his
neighbors.
Quick made fortunes are certain
demoralisers, and promise that the
drawers and often their families have
assembled the scale of fortune but to
Immediately turn about and climb
down it. We now allude to fortunes
made otherwise than by gambling, or
the prize lottery. Mining fortunes
usually insure idleness and depravi>
ty and future distress. 1t is believed
that, of the thousands Of army con-
tractors, theirsudden gathered wealth
counted by hundreds of thousands
and in few cases by millions, nearly
all are on the sure way to ruin, with
their families, and perhaps not one in
twenty will survive-these latter on
ly such as dealt honestly by the gov
eminent.
But, we are seeming to incucate
doctrine by many denied-that the
sin of covetousness which leads men
to dishonest resorts for accommodating
money being SO hateful in the sight
Of God, the guilty are at once showed
outside, and several generations Of
them made to bite the dust Of the
earth. We answer that such is pref
ty much our view of the thing. The
crimes OF covetovsness, like that ofop-
preston, can only be washed out by
filtering several generations through
the WASN'T ofGod's affection This
was always the practice Of Jehovah,
is such now and ever will be so long
as the Christian system of salvation
shall stand. God can have scarcely
any forgiveness in store for those who
live by any other means than indus
try; and we fear that but too many
these times are preparing through
the crime of covetousness for descent
into that dreary recess in the bowels
Of obscurity whence there are to be
no escapes tho present century.
We prepare this in view Of the
means being used for popularising the
lottery. OF late some Of the church.
es have gone into the lottery business
under pious pretense, but this only
makes the business the more hateful
and wicked in the sight of God.