St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-03-07
The Delirium of Lotteries.

4AC OI LOLC6T1GS.
All the accounts of the drawing of
the great French lottery agree in their
description of the scenes of intense ex-
citement attending it. The drawing be-
gan on the 26th of January, and was
expected to last almost a month; al
though, as the largest prizes were drawn
first, the interest must steadily dimin-
ish as the amounts at stake grow
smaller. Every day, as the earliest
evening papers appeared, the kiOsks
were besieged by eager crowds as they
used to he in war time when news of
battles WAS expected and men were
10 he seen at street corners and in cafes
poIing over the lists of numbers drawn.
and comparing them with their own
tickets. There have been some brilliant
successes, and, of course, some hitter
disappointments. The great prize was
won 10y a railway ticket clerk Il young
woman, who is Il silver pOlisher, gained
the grand organ, valued at 10000
francs "A cabman won $1,000 worth of
iewelrN, and so oil. y poor tavern
waitress was congratulated by scores of
friends over the possession of a number
which had won a large prize, only TO
find out few hours later that the fOrtu-
nate number belonged to another series.
Paris has been kept in fever of ex-
element, which has indeed prevailed
largely outside of the metropolis. for
hundreds of thousands of wOrkingmen,
servants, peasants, soldiers and even
children throughout France, hold tick
cts. The lottery was so widely adver-
tised, the number of prizes was so large
- about S3.000-and many Of them were
so tempting that the mania for gambling
penetrated all ranks of society, and
developed into national passion. As
many of the tickets were held by
foreigners, the haleful influence extend
ed outside of France, and it is one of
the fruits of it that we hear of PROPOSE
tions for relieving the Glasgow bank
shareholders by IA lottery, for getting
the Turks out of their financial difficult
ties in the same way, and in France for
restoring the periodical lotteries and
licensed gaming tables that fiourished
before 1897.
1t does not require a very rigid moral
ity to be able to perceive the great
hrrmtulnesS of such gambling epi-
drmic. The French are naturally one
of the most industrious and frugal of
peoples. They are accustomed, espe-
cially in the lower ranks of society, to
making much out of little. 1t was
owing to the distribution of the land
among hundreds of thousands of small
owners. and TO the myriad small ac-
cumulations of savings among the peo-
pie, that France Was able to emerge so
quickly from her difficulties after the
war with Germany. But with all this
industry and economy, and this content
with small earnings and savings, the
French are, also, exceedingly eXcitable,
and i'll prepared to resist the tempta-
tions presented by lotteries and gam
bling schemes.
When now, to a people thus conSti-
tuted, there is presented such a project
as this of the Exposition lottery, with
its possibilities of becoming suddenly
wealthy 10y the mere turn of IA wheel,
and the project is so shaped as to invite
the participation of the very hum blest
and poorest, there is no reckoning the
decentralization which results. They do
not stop to reckon how small is the
chance to the individual holder-among
hundreds of thousands of tickets-of
drawing any considerable prize. They
know only that each has as good a
chance as any other, and so they buy
their tickets and wait in feverish unrest
for the result. There are scores of
thousands of peasants in France before
whom, for these weeks back, there has
danced the golden prospect of sudden
wealth. AS day by day goes by, and
each days drawing diminishes the pros
pect of success, the weight of disap-
pOintment becomes heavier, and they
grow more and more discontented with
their fate. How hard and cold and
narrow appear the everyday tasks, the
ordinary drudgery and routine of COM
mon life, as the bright dreams and the
divine possibilities which they cherish
ed fade awayi And with the winners
the case is scarcely better. They are
lifted for the time into what seems to
he an assured prosperity, but the mania
for gambling holds them, the success
which they have had embOldens them
to fresh ventures, aud after brief
delirium of money-getting aud money
spending, they return with broken en-
ergies to the common pursuits of life,
or plunge hOpelessly into the Seine.
The net receipts of the lottery are
estimated at S625, 900, but the damage
wrought to the French people is in
finitely greater than can be compen-
stated for by any such sum. There are
thousands of them who will not recover
their mental and moral balance for
weeks and months, and with many
others the harm done is irreparahle. So
far from encouraging other lotteries, in
4 IL.
should teach the utter folly and wicked
ness of every such enterprise.-Bo Boston
Journal.
LIGHT FOR THE SICK-RooM.-A kero-