Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1881-01-25
Tuesday Morning, Jan. %. 1881.


EDWARD t. oARRINeToN. JOHN oARRINGroN,
Tuesday Morning. Jan. 25. 1851.
LOTTERIES Ar CHURCH FAIRs.
The Society for the Prevention of Crime
in New York city is working for the sup
preston of lotteries at church fairs, and the
action of the society naturally causes much
discussion of the question whether or not
the use of lotteries at such places is immoral.
A number of the prominent clergymen of the
city have been interviewed concerning the
matter and the remarks of some of them are
Interesting and not Insignificant.
DIR. Howard Crosby thinks that lotteries
are according to the law of association, en-
tirely out of place in connection with reig-
ious work and life. Lotteries in church
fairs, he says, are full of fun and jollity
apart from the exceptional principle on which
they are conducted. and if fun and jollity are
to be associated in our minds with religious
matters, then our religion will be of a. very
low order There viii not be much differ
ence between our religion and our worldly
life. On that ground he thinks that Christian
people should never bring the two together,
apart from any wrong principle involved in
lotteries at church fairs ''Ehen, besides, a
lottery is gambling, and gambling induces
thriftlessness, poverty and revengeful crimes.
In church fairs the habit has also been to
make young women brazen-faced and to use
all kinds of irregular arts to make money"
The Rev DIR. William M. Taylor, pastor of
the Broadway Tabernacle, says 81 don't
like to see lotteries anywhere, and least of all
in church fairs. I think they are bad d.every
where, and especially in connection with the
church. They are species of gambling, and
the law in regard to them ought to be impair
TALLY enforced. When the law is broken,
whether in church fairs or anywhere else, the
offenders should be punished, and that would
very soon finish the lotteries SO far as
the churches are concerned. I don't think,
however, that the churches should wait for
the interference of the law before they stop
the lotteries, and only hope the police will
go all around, and not make fish of one and
flesh of another" The Rev. DIR. Henry c.
Potter, rector of Grace church, thinks
church lotteries unwholesome, unwise and
unwarrantable, and that the church ought not
to wait for legal proceedings to stop raising
money that way.
On the other hand, the Rev. DIR. Edward
McGlynn, of st. Stephens Roman Catholic
church. thinks that there is nothing intrin-
sically immoral in q lottery. For if one is
free to give away his money, he argues, he is
gent upon the chances of lottery The
same is to be said of any kind of gambling if
honestly conducted. At the same time, DIR.
McGlynn thinks that the practice of gam
bling is very pernicious to community, as
encouraging reliance upon chance rather
than upon honest industry and thrift. It is
serious disorder that a few lucky ones
should be suddenly and greatly enriched by
heavy tax, even though self imposed. upon
the many, and those perhaps the least able
to bear it. DIR. McGlynnssa that in his
opinion the State has the right, and it would
be good thing for the State, to regulate and
even utterly to forbid all games of chance
and gambling as business. Whether or not
lotteries at church fairs are included in the
existing prohibition is a question rather for
lawyers, the courts or the Legislature. He
thinks that it speaks very poorly for religion
and charity that it should be ecessary, if it
is necessary, to resort to such arts in order
to support churches and charitable institu-
tions. It is certainly very different from,
and hardly an improvement upon, the way of
the Apostolic, the earlier and the Middle
Ages, which he characterizes as the better
ages of the church.
The Rev. DIR. Thomas Armitage, of the
Fifth Avenue Baptist church, looks upon lot
teries in church fairs as one of those things
in which people find only another way of
giving their money for benevolent objects.
He says s'The great law of all human ac-
ton is that the motive gives character to the
act If a. person at a church fair takes
shares in lotteries gives votes or anything
of that sort with the simple purpose of aid
ing the fair in its object, I don't see but what
it is the same as to give money in any other
way. If, however, the gambling spirit comes
in, by which understand that you take that
from another to which you have no claim,
and generally to his injury, it alters
the whole case. Those who manage fairs
should exercise their best Judgment
in the matter. I look upon church lotteries
very much as simple game like checrlsk,
backgammon or dominoes, which have no
moral character in themselves except as you
bring moral character to them by a wrong
purpose DIR. Armitage's complaint would
lodge against fairs as whole rather than
against the present method of conducting
them,
These expressions of opinion cover about
the whole ground. We imagine that the
majority of the clergymen and of thinking
laymen would not agree with DIR. McGlynn
and DR.. Armitage in their opinion about lot
teries, though they might agree with the lat
ter's opinion about church fairs. One sug
gestion is made by DIR. Taylor which viii
meet with general approval, al,-that is that the
police should be impartial in suppressing lot
teries and gambling of all kinds. AS the
7ti6une well says 'sTo see the heavy hand
of the law stretched out to stop the rafting
of idealized worsted work or impossible fam
cy slippers to bring money into the treasur-
les of hospitals and asylums, while the great
public lotteries go on openly with their fraud
ulent and demoralzing traffic, and gambling
saloons and worse places of resort still con-
tinue to swallow up their victims, suggests
that wen-worn comparison of the straining
at the gnat and the easy deglutition of the
camel"