The Washington critic., 1886-01-30
THE LOUISIANA STATE LOTTERY
a Card from Gen. j. a. Early, One of
the OiiiciaI Commissioners.

a Card from Gen. j. a. Early, One of
the Oificial commissioners.
AT the December drawing of the
Louisiana State Lottery for 1888, No.
1907 drew the capital prize of $780,
Geo. That drawing was conducted by
General Beauregard and myself in per
son, after we had counted the tubes
containing the numbers and placed
them in the wheel, having ascertaincd
the full number, from to 100000, in.
elusive, to be present. n record of the
drawing was made at the time, which
we took especial pains to see was accu-
rate, as we invariably do. That record
was in writing, in book kept for the
purpose, and our certificate was ap.
pended TO ii in the following language
''The subscribers having supervised
the single number drawing, class M
Louisiana State Lottery, hereby certify
that the above are the numbers which
were this day drawn from the 100000
placed in the wheel, with the prizes
corresponding to them.
witness our hands, at New Orleans,
La, this Tuesday, December IS, 1881"
This was the full extent and purport
of our certificate. in this, as in all
other cases, we had nothing whatever
TO do with the sale of tickets, and no
knowledge of where or to whom they
were sold. In publishing the list of
the drawing with our certificate there
was appended below the latter n note
stating that portion of the capital
prize had been sold in San Francisco.
We were no more responsible for the
accuracy of that note than contrib.
utor to magazine or newspaper is for
q note the editor may think proper to
append to his communication 1t
turned out that a mistake was made in
stating that Il portion of the capital
prize had been sold in San Francisco,
and that mistake originated in this
way: DIR. Nj. A. Dauphin, the president
and business manager of the Lottery
Company, had lost his wife, to whom
| he was very much devoted not long
| before that time, and he was himself in
| Il very bad state of health, being physi-
| cally incapable of attending to his
regular duties. 1t therefore devolvcd
on some of the clerks in the Office on
this occasion to attend to what he was
in the habit of giving his personal at
tention to. Quite u large number of
tickets had been sent to San Francisco,
| and the clerks who were attending to
the publication Of the drawing, on the
night after it occurred fell into the
error of supposing that part of the
capital prize had been sold in San
| Francisco.
This was not an intentional misrep.
resentation, but an eXcusable mistake,
and no one was injured thereby, for If
any person had purchased a part or the
whole of the ticket at any other place
the prize would have been paid TO him
on production of the ticket, or on re-
fusal he could have recovered it in one
of the courts. AS the company pays
all the prizes that are drawn, in full,
without scaling, the tickets which are
| not sold belong, of course, to the com
pany, and it makes no difference to the
holders of other tickets that such is the
fact, for they have precisely the same
chances in the drawing as if all the
tickets were sold. 1t has happened sew
eral times, when the capital prize was
drawn in full by some ticket holder,
that the company has lost money, be.
cause tickets enough had not been sold
TO make the receipts equal to the pay
ments that had to be made, yet the
company has faithfully complied with
its obligations. | must say here that
there have been several cases decided
| in the courts in New Orleans, where
tickets that drew large prizes had been
sent to the parties ordering them, but
were intercepted in the mails by dis
honest mail agents or purloined by
| others, who claimed the prizes. In
these cases the company, which keeps
record Of tickets sent to purchasers
from its office, refused to pay the
| prizes to the persons who had improp.
erly come into possession of the tickets,
and compelled the parties to test their
right to the money in the courts on bills
of interpleader, the money in each case
being paid into court, subject to its
order. One or two of these cases have
been reported in some of the law
| journals.
In the case of the drawing for Decem
ber, 1888, some man in San Francisco,
who is reported to be crank, claimed
that he had purchased of another man
one-tcnth of ticket 1907 in that draw
ing, and that the latter had destroyed
or pocketed the ticket. Suit was there
upon brought against the alleged ven
dor OF said ticket, commission was
issued to take the dispositions of DR..
Dauphin and one of his clerks to be used
as evidence in the suit. They proved
that no part of ticket No. 1901 had
in fact, been sold, and that it was not
issued in tcnths. On this testimony the
claimant in said suit was non suited
and his claim was an absurd one, for ii
the alleged vendor of the ticket to him
who was not an agent of the lottery
company or in any way connected with
it, but mere speculator in its tickets
which he bought for resale, had beer
unprinciplGd enough to deprive his
vcndec of ticket sold him after it had
drawn prize, he would certainly have
pany, which he has never done, n,
there was no such ticket On tht
above state of facts some newspapers
and notably among them, the Phila
delphia Times, have made a grca
clamor against General Beauregart
and myself for being connected Will
what is alleged to be "a swindle."
So far as Colonel Mcclure, so called
is concerned, if he had proper sense
of manhood he would never mention
the name of the Louisiana State Lottery
for when n suit for libel was brough
against him for charging the company
with being fraudulent concern, hC
sneaked out of it by relying upon the
statute of Pennsylvania, prohibiting
lotteries within its limits, as II bal
against all suits by u lottery company
in that State, instead of meeting The
charge like man Of honor and cour
age. The fact is that he has proved
himself fit coadjutor of such creatures
as that fraud and blackmUiler, l.. Lum
Smith, and the notorious Brick Pome'