Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1885-03-28
-McMINNVILLE, TENNESSEE SATURDAY, MAR. %, 1855
Concerning Lotteries.

the Nashville Union. If all the pa,
pers in the State would decline lottery
advertisements, it would materially
decrease the sale of their tickets through.
out the State. We have been rather
surprised to see some of our best State
exchanges admitting lottery advertise
ments into their columns. The Union
reaches the following logical conclu.
sions in the matter:
Volumes have been written to Illus
trate the fascination, as well as the
danger, of games of chance, but very
little is thought or said in connection
with them of their most logical enemy,
the claws of chance" If any person,
in the same enjoyment of that intelli,
gence with which the creator is sup>
posed to have endowed mankind, will
sit quietly down and weigh even a
school textbook on logic in one hand,
with as many as 100 tickets of the
Louisiana or Kentucky State Lattery
in the other, he would not probably be
very long in determining which hand
was to go down in the scale. But,
instead of consulting the logic of the
situation, the song Of what man has
done, man may do, seems always to
be the siren that deludes the money
from the pocket Of him in whose
"breast hope springs eternal"
This spirit of gambling is one of the
strongest propensities of human nature.
1t has pervaded all classes of society
and has ragged in every age and nation.
The highest civilization has been fire.
quently smitten with it as with a lep-
rosy, and the most degraded barbara
ans indulge in it to this enlightened
. day with wild excitement, wagering
their wives and daughters and often
times their personal liberty, 1t has
taken every form and shape in its pro-
team changes, from the worst games of
cards and dice to the authorized State
lottery to obtain educational funds, and
, the innocent little church rattle where
handful of toys and one lone oyster
are expected to provide a carpet for
the Suhday-school or a dozen new
shirts for the pastor.
Did not Joshua divide the land unto
the children Of Israel by lot, From
this comes the word lottery, one of the
: most unjust forms of distribution that
t men have admired and practiced from
, the days of Joshua down to the pres
ent time. Strict justice compels us tc
admit that the business of the promi
nent lotteries in the United States i:
conducted by their managers with fair
i, ness, and all their transactions, like
those in the "bucket Shops" or, to use
} more polite term, the public stock
exchanges" may be literally "above
board" still, lotteries are gambling
; institutions that receive something fol
: nothing, and one so recognized by the
, laws of every intelligent community,
and should be suppressed wherever
, they attempt to rear their unlawful
: heads.
In Tennessee. gambling has latterly
5 been pronounced felony, and yet
this form Of vice, the lottery, is per.
mitted openly and publicly to suck
money from poor people every month,
who literally know not what they dc
when they expend their hard-earned
wages in the purchase of tickets that
y represent only so much as the value O
e the paper upon which they are printed
/ A little legislative action might vel
n be taken upon this subject before thu
e adjournment of our solons from tn,
State Capitol.
e Proposing to practice what i
n breaches, The Union will no
e admit to its columns advertisement
h of lotteries or any other kind of gamb
}. ling scheme, however innocent it
Y name.
. Head EN- Off, Girls