St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-08-05
HIGH CHARACTERIZED II IL
THE PALNY DAYS IN NEW
ORLEANS.
how 1T GAINED A FoorHoLD
A. Tampa, by Which business Is
Stin Transacted in the
United States.

NouiSiana State Lottery company, |
shall not surrender the presidency of
the Gulf Coast Ice and Manufacturing
company, of Bay St. Louis, Miss
Therefore address all proposals for
supplies, machinery, etc, as well as all
business communications, To
PAUL CONRAD,
Puerto Corte2. Honduras,
Care Central American Express
Fort Tampa City Florida. o. S. A
You have probably read this adj
vertisement often, and enjoyed the
naif manner in which MI Conrad
asks for correspondence on different
subjects, especially on that relating
to 'all business communications,
and how at the same time he has so
described his whereabouts that no
letters so addressed would ever reach
his PARKWAY home in Puerto Cortez,
but would be promptly stopped at
Tampa, as he means that they
should, says Richard Harding Davis
in Harper's Weekly.
After an anonymous friend had
told me Of Puerto Cortez, read of it
on the programme with a keener in
tereSt, and Puerto Cortez became to
me a harbor of much mysterious mo-
ment, of a certain dark significance,
and Of possible adventure I remem-
bered all that the lottery had been
before the days of its Punishment,
and all that it had dared. to be when,
as a corporation legally chartered
by the state of Louisiana, it had
put its chain and collar upon legis-
latureS and senators, judges and ed
ftors, when it had Silenced the voice
OF the church and the pulpit for
many times together by great gifts
Of money to charities and hospitals,
so giving out in a lump sum with
one hand what it had taken from
the people in dollars and half-dol-
lars, five hundred and six hundred
fold, with the other. [ remembered
when its trade mark, in open-faced
type, La. S. L." was as familiar in
every newspaper in the United
States as were the names of the
papers themselves, when it had not
been communicated by the post
master general, and before it had
had to hide its real purpose under
a carefully worded paragraph in
theatrical programmes or on "dodg-
Frs" or hand-bills that had an ex-
lstence of moment before they were
swept out into the street and which,
as they were not sent through the
mails, were not worthy the notice of
the federal government.
1t was not so very long ago that
1t requires any effort to remember it,
1t is only a. few years since the lot
terry !ield its drawings freely and
with great pOmp and circumstance
in the st. Charles theater, and Gems.
Reauregard and Early presided at
these ceremonies, selling the names
they had made glorious in a lost
cause to help in what was, for the
lottery people at least, distinctly a
winning one. For in those days the
state lottery cleared above all eX-
penses $4,000 600 a year, and Gems.
Beauregard and Early drew incomes
from it much larger than the gov
eminent paid to the judges of the
supreme court and the members of
the cabinet, who finally declared
against the company and drove it
into exile. There had been many
efforts made to kill it in the past
and the state lottery was called the
national disgrace" and the modern
slavery" and Louisiana was spoken
of as a. blot on the map of our
country. as was Utah when polyg-
amy fourished within her state
lines and defied the laws of the fed
eral government. The final rally
against the lottery occurred in 1890,
when the lease OF the company eX-
pired, and the directors applied to
the legislature for Il renewal At
that time it was paying out but
very little and taking in fabulous
sums. AS a matter of fact, in those
palmy times, when there were daily
drawings, the lottery received on
some days ass many as IS, 900 to 90, 900
letters, with orders for tickets in
closed, which averaged s. a letter.
It was Postmaster General Wanna
maker who put a stop to all this by
refusing to allow any printed mat
ter concerning the lottery to pass
outside the state of Louisiana, which
decision, when it came, proved to be
the order Of exile to the greatest
gawbling concern of modern times.
The lottery, of course, fought the
decision in the courts, and the case
was appealed 20 the supreme court
of the United States. and was up
held, and from frat time no letter
addressed to tire lottery in this coun-
try, or known 70 certain matter re-
ferring to the lottery, and no news
paper advertising it, can pass
through the mails. Tho ruling was
known before the vote on the renew
al Of the lease came up in the legis-
lature of Louisiana, and the lottery
people say that, knowing that they
could not, under these new restric-
tons, afford to pay the sum of one
million dollars a, year, they ceased
their efforts to pass the bill asking
for renewal Of their lease, and let
1t go without a fight. This may or
may not se true, but in any event
the bill did not pass, and the great
Est lottery of all times was without
place in which to spin its wheel,
Without a charter or a home. and
fut OH from the most obvious means
of communication with its hundreds
of thousands of supporters Rut
though it was accommodated. ont
lawed. and exiled, it was not beaten
1t still retained agents all over the
country, and it still held its custo-
mers, who were only waiting to throw
their money into its lap, and still
hoping that the next drawing would
bring the grand prize.
For some long time the lottery was
driven about from pillar to post, and
Knocked eagerly here and there for
ldmittance, seeking home and rest