Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1893-04-01
From New Orleans Our Southern capi,ar'

From New Orleans Our Southern Capital
BY Julian Ralph in Harper's Magazine for
February
The Louisiana lottery being lcgalized,
tickets are openly displayed in the shop
windows, and are sold on the sidewalks
by men. women and children One store
for the sale Of these tickets bears such a
legend as this on its sign This is lucky
Number Eleven. More winning tickets
sold here than anywhere else in town.
There was a drawing while was in the
city, and knowing that the lottery com
pany was not 10 ask for q renewal Of its
privileges, ayailed myself Of the oppor-
tunity to witness its chief public opera
tion and the historic characters who have
been induced by large salaries TO hgnre
for IL. The dra wing took place in a thea
ter called the Academy Of Music" al
eleven o'clock in the morning The yell
low gas-jets battled feebly with the
daylight in the lobby into which the pco-
pie were pressing without let or quattica-
tion. The theater was two-thirds full AZ
last. On the stage, set with parlor
scene, was knot Of men between two
wheels. The wheel on the right was a
band OF silver with sides of glass and
with door In the metal rim bushel
OF little black gutta- percha envelopes the
size of dominoes had been poured into
this wheel, and a white boy. blindfolded
with a handkerchief stood at the handle
of the crank by which the wheel
was turned lie had one arm in the door
Of the wheel, and with the hand OF
the other arm was Offering tiny envelope
20 General Beauregard-the last surviv-
ing general who served on either side in
1at A t,anf1eua a nj
looking man he j., with the features Of a
French courtier, with snowy hair. "a white
mustache. q little goatee, and the pinkest
skin baby ever knew. lie was fault
lessly dressed. Across the stage. beside
a very much larger wheel Of parti-c0lored
boards, sat Major General Jubal A. Early
"a perfect type of the conventional hg-
ure OF Father Time; tall, portly, stoop-
shouldered, partly bald, and with n long.
heavy. white beard. He was dressed all
! in the color OF the uniform he distin-
| guished BY his valor as a soldier.
By each general stood q blindfOlded
boy. taking numbers out of wheels, and
handing them to the generals. From the
big wheel to Major General Early came
the numbers of the tickets; from the little
wheel 20 General Beauregard came the
number of dollars that formed the prize
each ticket had won. BY each general
! stood a crier. Early read out, Twenty
( ONE tuOusduh one anu
and Beauregard, having sheiled the gutta-
/ percha case of billet, read ont
! Two hundred dollars" Then the
eriers took the billets and
cried the numbers, ''Twenty-one
| thousand one hundred and tifty-two" from
one; ''tew hundred dollars from the
other, who, by the way, called out ''tew'
hundred dollars at least "tew" hundred
times. But all the prizes were not of that
amount. l chaneed % hear the capital
prize read out
''Twenty-eight thousand four hundred
and thirty nine" said Early. Three
hundred thousand dollars" said Beaurc-
gard
The effect was startling; indeed the
startled senses refused to grasp the mean
ing OF the words. The c-iers repeated the
figures The people IL the theater craned
forward, a hundred pencils shot over pads
or bits of paper in mems and women :
laps Then murmLr of voices sounded
all over the house The routine ou the
stage was halted, for the criers took the
two bits OF paper To some clerks who sat
at tables in the farther part OF the stage,
to allow them to verify the important
figures Then the routine began anew.