Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-08-23

gress to and from work From the best informs-
erage about $50 per diem. They swarm daily
with slatternIy women, barefooted children,
bloused workingmen, youthful clerks and
household servants sent to market on some
purchasing errand!. None but the poor and jg-
norant enter these direful doors. Some OF
these shops Eeep dream books and other
stimulants to aid the superstitious in selecting
lucky NUMBERS. By daily repetition OF play
thousands of Door wretches become afflicted
with the Lottery craze and to crafty this
theft and eznbezzlement enter innumerahie
households
Any Intelligent reader can easily pic
ture the fearful Generalization that these
daily drawings and their more than five
score of policy-shops work among the peo
pie Of the Crescent City. 1t will scarcely
be possible for the most vivid Imagination
to overcolor the picture.
As an evidence that the people of New
Orleans and the State of Louisiana gam
bic heavily in the daily drawings and il
betting upon numbers, it is in proof tha
while of the So, 100000 revenue of the
lottery concern SO per cent comes to i
from outside of Louisiana, and upon the
monthly drawing, the seven per cent. re
naming by no means represents the ex
tent of the local lottery gaming. TIT
outside betting, the policy-shop specula
ting upon numbers and drawn combina
tions, represents sum more than equal t
twice the percentage referred to, so tina
we have really 21 per cent of S22,00O,00'
annually, representing the local gaming
on daily drawings and outside of TIN
money spent upon monthly schsmes-tha
is to say, nearly $5,000,000.
So monstrous has become the business 0
this gaming octopus in its gigantic scheme
of robbery, that one-third of all the mail
matter coming to the City of New Orlean
is the matter of the lottery company
while one-sixth of the express mail matte
also belongs to it, and $4,000 da.
in postal notes and orders pass through
the hands of its agent, chartered Ma
tional Bank.
So powerful is the lottery company, ant
so enormous its gains, that it is able t
propose for new lease of life to pay t.
the State of Louisiana S1,250,000 yea
for the grant, if made monopoly. for a
present, as already stated, the Louisiana i
not the only lottery engaged in robbine
the people, since numerous small concern
and foreign agencies operate in the cite
of that State; the financial drain they
make upon the productive energy of tn,
people we have not taken into account il
this paper.
1t is easy to understand why the enc
mics of the lottery in Louisiana appeal, a!
they now do, to all the people of th'
United States. They are conscious that a
home they are in a minority, but they
feel, and not without reason, that the citi
zens of other States are deeply interested
in their effort; that they should be i'm
mediately concerned in strangling the in
fanny that has fastened upon Louisiana
They hold that when any State so shame
lessly uses its power as a sovereignty t.
corrupt the people of the whole nation, i
ought to be, and must be, restrained by
the united action of the people O
the Republic, and hence it is that they
urge the submission of an amendment t.
the Constitution of the United States, pro
viding, by surrender of so much of sover
eign power in the States as is necessary
that no State shall charter any lottery OF
gift enterprise, or permit any drawing o
the same or the sale of any tickets therein
Such proposed amendment has beer
introduced by Senator Blair. Concerning
it the Convention referred to closes its APP
peal to the people of the United States ii
these words:
With national evil of great magnitude to cor
rect with the clear constitutional power to crush
that evil effectively, why should the American
people hesitate to use their influence with the
existing Congress to have the above-suggested
legislation adopted speedily? We ask that all
candidates of all parties of the Legislatures Of
the various States be required TO pledge them
selves to vote for the amendment propo ed by
Congress to the Constitution of the United States
prohibiting and abolishing State lotteries. All
this we ask in the name of our common citizen.
ship of this Republic, and in behalf of public
honor, the public interest and the public and
10 IA Nft nf Etafa