New-York tribune., 1880-10-05

the transaction of the lottery business was
prohibited to the Louisiana State Lottery
| Company, the worst of all these several
swindes, because it has the specious indorse-
ment of two prominent men who apparently
guarantee the fairness of its drawings, whereas
they make showing of supervising only two
of them each year. In q suit begun by the
company TO compel the carrying and delivery
of their letters by the Government it
was defeated, and the action of the
| Department was sustained by the Court
| Nevertheless, Postmaster General Key. on the
| very heels of this victory, abandoned his
| position, and consented to let the company
use the mails pending an appeal to the Su-
preme Court In this appeal the various
companies pooled their issues and all agree
ing to abide by the decision in the Louisiana
case, all were allowed the privileges of the
mails. The new Postmaster General recently
very properly rescinded the order as far as
tho three Kentucky lotteries were concerned;
he mistakenly allows the Louisiana to
continue the use of the mails. 1t
is obviously in bis power to deny
to all if he can deny to any one OF them and
the decision of the Court justlfies him In the
action taken. In fact. he has stronger legal
grounds for denying the Louisiana than the
other companies, for only last year the Legis-
lature of Louisiana repealed the charter or
that company, while the Kentucky Court oil
Appeals has asserted the legality lin Ken
lucky, at least) of the concerns of that name.
There are even stronger moral grounds
which would justify Mr. Maynard in rescind-
in. oil will oI m hos
They have neither legal nor moral claims to
recognition by postmasters or policemen Ihe
act which chartered the Louisiana Lottery
started out with a declaration that foreign
lottery companies had taken many millions OF
dollars from the people of that State; and so
they established home company to do the
same thing. That market being finally ex-
hausted, the company came here rs the next
richest field, doubtless to take as many mill
ions as they could from our people. 1t Is
done by every trick and device which ex-
perienced swndlers can Origlr ate under the
guidance and advice of lawyers learned in
the quibbles of the law. They leave
no chance whatever to the gambler
who buys their tickets. They spare no
purse, however slender; their tickets are d.
vded up into quarters and eighths SO that the
poorest may be preyed upon. No person can
depict or imagine the misery which these
companies bring upon innocent people lii thus
panderng to the lnfatuation of lottery gam
blers. The pretence of establishing libraries
and soldiers homes, and Of supporting hos
pIals in distant States, is mockery which
nobody even pretends to believe anything but
cant. The traffic is, in short, cheat by winch
no person or institution benefits except the
managers and their agents, and by which the
poor are Iobbcd and demoralized.
We have lately. as in years past. written
earnestly and feeingi5 on this subject; aud
we beg now to urge most earnestly upon the
PostmasterG enera the justice and wisdom Of
striking a hard and telling blow at this great
evil-the worst in the form OF gambling
which this country has ever been afflicted
with. Just now the United States Postal De-
partment is the most active and successful
agency which the companies employ. 1t car
Iles for them daily many thousands of circu-
lars tempting persons 10 gamble. 1t helps |
them TO penetrate to homes and instl-
tutions and schools in which less in
sdious agents would not be for a
moment tolerated. 1t aids them to advance
arguments and hold out temptations to men,
women and children which individual agents |
could not present. And it carries every year
many millions of the hard-earnel money of |
the poor to swell the gains of companies |
whose organized means of deirauding employ |
thousands of rascaly clerks AID cost vast |
sums to maintain In this immediate field of |
their operations-thc richest in the country |
the means of conducting these several |
swindlcs have been materially curtaed. The !
larger of the Offices have been closed; !
the sales of the smaller ones. which do not |
advertise their location. have to be conducted |
more secretly than ever before. number of !
dealers have been tried and convicted the
publishers of several newspapers which pub
lished the places where tickets were to be
had have been indicted. and those who have
anything to lose will unquesti0nably cease to
offend. Three of the managers of the Louis
lana company have been recently put under
bonds in q police court, and are hkcl' as
well as liable to be shortly indicted by the
Dstrict-Attorney, under the urgent hints
of Governor Cornell The Police Commission
ers have called their subordinatcs to
strict accountability for failure to suppress
ticket selling, and arrests of dealers are
daily occurrence In this city. And, to con-
clude, the companies are now forced to tho
and expensive device of sending
their agents and clerks to peddle tickets in the
tenement-hOuscs.
This is tho situation of the lot
tery business in this city just now. This
state of affairs has been brought about by the
firm action of Governor Cornell, and sus-
tanned as he is by the best public senti-
ment of the community. he will doubtless |
go still further and reduce the lottery
swinders to oven greater extremities. But
every day the mails OF the United