The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-06-23
THINK 1T OVER.

The lottery swindlers find their profits
in the easy credulity of tie victims and in
the American disregard for the smaller
economies of life. An easy credulity is
readily persuaded to take the most I'm.
promising chances # they do not cost
| much, and to the average American
twenty-five cents is but triie and even a
dollar does not seem an important part OF
a months earnings. Hence those Ameri
! cans who are credulous of every tale that
is told yield without difficulty to the en-
Elements of the persuasive rascals who
offer them lottery tickets on the argument
that even if no prize is drawn the loss will
be small.
1t is evident under these circumstances
that much can be done to cripple the
power OF lotteries and save money for use
in legitimate industry by leading those
people who have been in the habit OF buy
ing lottery tickets to think for little
while upon the comparative values of a
ticket and of two-bit piece. We return
to the subject this morning therefore with
that object in view. It is day of rest.
Nearly everybody in the City has leisure
to reflect upon other things than business,
and to the victims OF the lottery game this
is bout as coed subject for meditation as
can be suggested.
In the course of its contest with lotteries,
the CALL has published abundant evidence
that the greater number of lottery COM
panies operating in this City are pnmiti-
gated swindles, never having any drawings
at all, that of the tickets purporting to
emanate from companies that do possibly
go through the motions of drawing, one
half are rank counterfeits, and that of the
genuine tickets OF such companies not one
in thousand draws prize. What, there
| fore, is ticket worth? Those who have
been in the habit OF buying them can best
| answer that question by calculating how
much they have put into lotteries and how
| much they have drawn out. Those who
| have had no experience will be able to find
the answer without it by the simple exer-
| else of common-sense.
! A two-bit piece is no great sum, but it is
| worth something. There is scarcely a
| household IN the City that could not find
really profitable use for even that small
amount of money. Ii it can be put to no
other service, it would be excellent as a
| starter for savings bank for a child.
Any boy or girl permitted to regard %
cents month of the family earnings as
| their own and taught to save it, would ac-
| quire habits of thrift and an estimate OF
the value and right uses of money that
would make them helpful to the family
when they grow up, and of more worth
| than 10000 lottery tickets. The subject,
| however, is one for individual reflection
rather than for general argument, for
every person is the best Judge Of what a
quarter is worth to him. We can only say
lottery ticket is about as worthless as
anything ever gets to be, and it would
seem, therefore, that any man who gives
| the subject the slightest consideration
could find TOR his money better use than
/ that of squandering it for the enrichment
of the sharpers who carry on their ne
| farious games in violation of the law
Think it over. The lottery is swindle
fraud, lying pretense, crime. Think
it over, and individually DO what you can
| to stamp it out.