The San Francisco call., 1897-05-30

molested by the police, will be Obliged 10
resort to honest labor, or to live on the
interest of the money which they have
plucked from their gullible victims.
Early yesterday morning, as soon as the
office was opened, a man entered the lot
tery shop of Henry S. Calm & Co., room
5l7 of the Safe Deposit and Trust Com
pany's building at 326 Montgomery street,
and presented ticket No. 1858 OF the
Original Little Benehcencia Pnblica Com
pany of San Francisco, which number
was advertised as having won $3.50.
The drawing took place IN the City OF
Mexico last Thursday in the Beneficencia
Publica Lottery. The Little Lottery OF
San Francisco prints Its own tickets and
advertises to pay prizes on the result OF
the drawings in the MeXlcan lottery.
The LUCKY" holder of the ticket, who
had sat up all night speculating with his
wife as to what they were going to do with
the $3.50 when they got 1t, took the pre-
cious" ticket carefully out OF his pocket
and laid it on the counter. The AHA BILE
cashier of the lottery company remarked: :
That's counterfeit"
The next moment he stamped across
the back of the ticket with red rubber
stamp the word, "Counterfeit.
The poor fellow. who seemed to be
hard working mechanic and who had
bought the ticket in good faith, ventLred
to ask why was it counterfeit, and the af
ia BILE cashier explained that the paper
wasn't good enough; the ink wasn't black
enough; the private numb Der in the LETT
hand end was not correct and thst the
watermark was missing. While he was
speaking two more men came up, each
with a ticket bearing the same winning
mum Der, ana these were also stamped
counterfeit"
A CALL reporter asked the cashier why
- was that so many winning tickets were
ahoat, all of them having been purchased
Il 25 cents each by the unsuspectIng VIC
Inns.
The cashier replied that already fifty
counterfeit lottery tickets bearing the
number II, 613 had been presen ted, and he
lad no doubt that many more would be
brought in during the day.
But the fact that so many "counterfeit'
tickets were afoat did not seem to dis
tress him bit. On the contrary, he
seemed to take pleasure in relating that
after the drawing of May s of this year
the lottery firm Of Metzger & Franklin
were presented with 500 Little Louisiana
lottery tickets. each bearing the number
35,6l3, which won the capital prize OF
$3.50.
The most extraordinary thing about
felt tickets of the winning mum Der should
have been printed. The cashier said that
the counterfeiter was in the habit of print
ing large quantity of tickets with the
same number on each in order to save
trouble and expense in the printing. II
this statement be true the chances for the
counterfeit tickets to fit the winning num-
Der of the capital prize are lmmeasurably
small. Yet within the space of nineteen
days the counterfeiter has succeeded in
guessing the mum Der of the capital prizes
IN two drawings. There appears to be
more of method than madness in this ex.
traordinary run of luck in a range of so
few mum bers as are indicated by the state
meut of the cashier, who does not seem to
be bre aking his heart over the existence oil
the counterfeit; ers.
He said that the genuine 1913 was sold
to an agent in San Diego, and that when
it shall arrive here the difference between
it and the counterfeit" will be apparent
to the most verdant sucker