Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1891-01-22
.THE GREAT FRAUD.
MOdus Operandi of the Louis
lana Lottery Company.
How the Company Manages to Draw
All the Larger Prizes.
You Thought You Saw Through
the Wheel But Didn't.
RUMOR THAT MONTHLY DRAWINGS
WILL BE ABANDONED

After the Mardl Gras Festivities Owing
to the Comparatively Small Sale of
Tickets Due to the Closing of the Mails
to the Company-The Lottery the Main
Cause of Poverty in the Crescent City.
Many Too Poor to Pay Their Taxes.
The Sharpers to the Rescue of the
Italians, Hoping Thus to Secure Their
Votes.
NEw ORLEANS, Jan. 22.-The usual
afhdavits from stool pigeons of the lot
terry company stating they held certain
tickets and won the larger prizes of
$500, 900 and $4,000 will not appear
this month as the prizes were scaled,
and only one-fourth of each ticket was
sold. This is new scheme of the lot
terry company. The mails being closed
to the lottery company, the sale of tick
cts was comparatively small end so the
lottery sharks got even with the pur-
chasers by putting only fractions of each
ticket in the wheel.
1t is rumored that after the Mardi
Gras festivities the monthly drawings
will be discontinued. There will be the
usual large crowd-100, ,000 or more
during the carnival, and the lottery
sharks invariably reap rich harvest
The daily drawings which scoop up
about $4,000 a day, will be continued
and further impoverish the poorer
classes who invest twenty-five or fifty
cents daily as regularly as they 90 to
market,
On the corners of the streets leading
to the markets, and III the market, out
crying the fish and vegetable venders,
the lottery ticket-seller is found with
handful of tickets, appealing to every
body to buy ticket and win for
tune" ''Who would work when they
can win a fortune for 81? Buy ticket
for twenty-five cents and you can take
trip to Europe"
The vegetable woman buys a ticket
from the proceeds of her cabbage sales,
and the poor woman stints herpurchases
i'll order to buy a coupon, with vain
hope of winning prize, and her market
basket is carried home that much the
lighter. 1t is no wonder that the poor
are ever poor and cannot pay their taxes
Were this winter climate as vigorous as
ton would be even greater than it is.
The lottery is about the only cause of
the sutferings of the poorer classes of
this city.
An unwritten incident of the lottery
sharpers is to the effect that several
years ago the large prizes were won by
the company in this way: The tube
containing the large prize, $500, 900 had
rough edges and was shaped differently
from the tubes containing the smaller
prizes, and in taking them out of the
prize wheel the blindfolded boy could
''see'' or rather feel the larger prizes
This capital-prize tube he held in the
palm of his hand, as IA gambler does
pair of aces, until the blindfolded boy at
the other wheel reached number
known to be held by the lottery com
pany, and which had also been 'palmed"
by the boy at the big wheel. These
boys received very large salaries.
Finally, a "quiet" exposure was made,
and then, to prevent further particulars
from coming to light, each of these
very shrewd boys retired from the lot
terry wheel and are now living in
'style" on the interest of their knowl-
edge.
Later on the lottery adopted another
plan. The tubes containing the capital
and other large prizes We're placed in
little glass pocket just inside the open
ing or door of the glass wheel from
which the prizes are drawn. This
pocket is so arranged that the deception
cannot be seen from the front, as the
glass aperture is arranged something in
the style Of a cCncave mirror, and the
spectator is under the delusion that be
'sees clear through the glass wheel
But he doesn't; nor through the drawing
either.
The usual price paid for affidavits
from persons that they held Cer-
tain ticket that won $500, 900, or $780,
600, has also decreased The price paid
formerly was 81 900 and even 81, ,000, but
now it is reduced to $500 and $3.50.
A few days after the murder of Chief
of Police Hennessy fellow named
Thomas Duffy, who was one of Hen
nessy's henchmen, got access to the
prison and shot one of the Italian pris-
This was as cowardly and as brutal as
the first assassination, and it is suspect
ed that the officers of the prison were
privy to it, for they pointed out the
prisoner to Duffy, who visited the jail
armed Duffy has been convicted of
'wounding with less than mayhem"
and cannot receive greater punishment
than two years imprisonment and $500
fine. He escaped with six months.
His crime was so atrocious and COW
ardly that his own brother, who is pro-
fessor of boxing in one of the athletic
clubs, has disowned him But the Wig
ilance committee of fifty is corrupting
the courts in the attempt to convict
every Italian that is charged with any
ohcnse, and the lottery company has
come to tho rescue of the sons of sunny
Italy, for they have 10000 votes, and the
company will need these votes in the
coming election.