Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1872-02-29

The moment Of the first step in my down.
fall was about the middle of last June,
when / took share in a company and
bought lottery tickets, whereby / was
successful in obtaining share of one-
half the capital prize. since which line
| have gone from myself. | have lived
and dragged out a miserable existeIlce
for two or three months past. OH tlIat
the seven or eight months past OF my 4y-
istence could be blotted out; but must
go, and ere this paper is read my spirit
has gone TO my maker, to give an &C.
count Of my misdeeds here and TO re-
ceive the eternal sentence for self-de-
struction and.Gbused confidence. Rela-
tives and friends | have, from whom |
do not wish to part under such circum-
stances; but necessity compels. Oh,
wretch, lottery tickets have been thy
ruin. Butt caanot add more.
There are Dultitudes Of people who
disapprove of ordinary lotteries, yet
have been thoroughly deceived by In
iquity under a more attractive non1en-
clature. The lottery in which our most
highly respectable and Christian people
invest is some art association" or some
benevolent gift enterprise" in which
they fondly believe there can be no harm
in drawing 3ierstadt's Yosemite Valley
or Cropser kAmerican Autumn T.
At no time have lottery tickets been
sown so broadcast as to-day, notRith-
standing the law forbids the old style
lottery. tN "
/ A few years ago, our newspapers fam
ed with the advertisements of the Crosby
Opera House scheme. A citizen Of Chi
cago, finding on his hands an Improbable
building calls upon the whole country
to help him out. Rooms are opened in
all the great cities. In rush, not the
abandoned atd the reprobate, for they
like the old styles of swindling better,
but the educated and refined and polish
ed, until host of people are in immi-
nent danger Of having thrown upon their
hands splendid opera house. Phila-
delphia buys 100000 worth of tickets
The portentuous day approaches. The
rail trains from many OF the prominent
cities bring the dignified Committees, :
who come to see that the great abomii
natoin is conducted in a decent
and christian manner. The throng
presses in. Hold fast your tickets, ali
you respectable New Workers, Philadel-
phians, and Bostonians, for the wheel
begins to move. The long agony is over.
Hundreds of thousands of people have
made a narrow escape from being ruined
by sudden affluenee. Swift horses are
dispatched that, foam-lathered, dash up
to the house of him who holds the sue
cessful ticket The lightnings tell it to
the four winds of heaven, and our weekly
pict6fials hasten forward the photo
graphers to take picture of the famous
man who owned the ticket numbered 3d.
600. Multitudes think there has been
foul play, and that, after all, they them
selves, if the truth were known, did draw
the opera houses Ten years from now
there will stand on the scaffold or behind
the prison door, or in the lonely room
in which the suicide writes his farewell
to wife or to parents, men who will say
that the first misstcp Of their life that
put them on the wrong road was the
ticket they bought in the Crosby Opera
House.
The man who won that prize is already
dead of his designations. And strange
to say, the beautiful building thus ratified
away was found to be owned by its orig
inal possessor, when all the excitement
in regard to the matter had died away.