Port Royal commercial and Beaufort County Republican. [volume] (Port Royal, S.C.) 1873-1874, 1874-04-30
A POPULAR SWINDLE.
The Louisville Lottery Drawing--.How
the Managers Fixed Things---Aii the
Prizes Scaled Down Twenty-Five Fer
Cent character OF the Library.

Inc LOutsVIIC --e@S''
the Managers Fixed Things-.-AIi the
Prizes Scaled Down Twenty-Five Fer
Cent. OF the Library.
Two or three hundred thousand peo-
pie have bits of waste paper in their
pocket-books, says q Louisville corre-
spondentof the Cincinnati Commercial,
representing their folly and gullibility
in equal proportions. AS an observer
of this Louisville Library drawing and
its surroundings, I must say it is a stu
pendous sham and humbug. ALI day l
have watched the big fraud called the
drawing, except during the noon inter-
mission, when I looked through the
other fraud called the Public Library
of Kentucky. A word here about this
library. The lottery advertisements
say the library has $4,000 volumes and
10000 more on the way. The highest
numbered book I could find on the
shelves did not reach 10000. Compar-
ing the shelves with other libraries not
associated with lotteries, I do not be-
lieve there are $1,000 volumes in the
Louisville affair. Many of these seem
to have been raked out of secondhand
collections. Trash is profusely abund-
ant such as duplicated volumes on
the Sutro tunnel-big books, and about
as valuable as Patent Office reports. 1
asked one of the Assistant Librarians
for the catalogue. He said the institu-
ton didn't have any, but was getting
one up. requested him to tell me how
many books were in the library. His
reply was that he didn't know, but that
great many new ones had been or
dered. The collection of curiosities
attached to the "library" is well
enough as a beginning. There is GER
tainly nothing imposing about it yet.
The library itself is a habby collection
of odds and ends, that wouldn't fetch
500 under the hammer. So it's not
into books the tremendous profits OF
the swindle are going.
Where 50 are received into this
library Lottery, only one is paid out in
prizes. The victim virtually pays q $40
greenback for S. greenback. The
sale of tickets for the present drawing
was $4,000, at $50 each. This gives
total of 50, ,250,000 The amount paid
out in prizes is just one-half-that is,
81, 125, 900. The point where this pal
pable grab catches gulls is in Offering q
few heavy prizes. Believers in luck are
numerous, and with benevolent news
papers to allure them with easy pic
lures of sudden wealth, they rush into
the snare pell-mell. The question is
what will become of the 81, ,125, 900 left
after the prizes of this drawing is set
tied? Agents selling tickets secure ten
per cent. Their remuneration therefore
amounts to 1925, 900. Put advertising
and printing at an even 100000, and
and other expenses at $4,000. This
will leave in the hands of the managers
the immense sum of S750,000. Does
ANYBODY believe that the purchase of
few carloads of shabby, secondhand
books can account for the expenditure
of over one hundredth part of this sum ?
Not much.
One feature of the drawing looked
like q bold and defiant swindle. Not
until the morning the drawing came off
did the lottery managers make q public
statement to the effect that only three
fourths of the 10000 tickets had been
sold, and that all the prizes, conse-
uuently, would be scaled down twenty
five per cent. OF course, the number
of tickets placed in the wheel should
also have been scaled down twenty five
per cent. that is, As, 900. The Courier
Journal, the organ of the swindle, an
nounced that this would be done. But
it wasn't done. Sixty thousand tickets
went into the wheel. Here, then, on
the very morning of the drawing, the
managers made an alteration in their
plan of operations, which was worth to
them 1876, 1000 in cash. Nice little plum
quite sufficient, indeed, to invite an
investigation by the fooled ticket
holders.
Your correspondent was one of the
audience at the drawing in the Public
Library Hall. The spectators numbered
about 1900. Many of them were coun-
trymen. Many were mechanics. A few
women, some Of them bowed with age.
were present. Even invalids could be
singled out, each anxiously waiting to
hear that he had made his eternal for
tune. Almost without exception the
spectators were hard-working men and
women. Out of these 1,500 spectators
who held their own numbers in their
fists, how many do you suppose were
suddenly enriched during the day. Not
one.
The drawing began about s A. NJ,
and was conducted decorously, and, as
far rs the wheel was concerned, with
seeming fairness. The stage was oc-
cupied by gray headed, respectable
looking men, who, some people will
think, might be q great deal better en-
ployed in their declining years. Two
large wheels, with glass sides, were
kept revolving. One of these contain
ed 10000 cards, numbered from orr
upward. The other held 1000 little
packages. uniform in size ond appear
ance. When opened each package was
found to be q placard, on which was
printed the amount of prize in letters
nearly foot long, easily legible from
any part of the hall. A blind boy drew
forth number. 1t was read aloud by
the spokesman, and also by member
of citizens committee. Then pack
age was taken out of the other wheel by
blind girl, and its figures exhibited to
the audience. Now and then when a
number was announced somebody in
the audience would cry out that he
held it. Amid breathless silence the
throng would wait the unfolding of the
little package that fixed the amount of
the prize. Almost invariably the spokes-
man held up placard inscribed $75.