Evening star., 1901-12-14
WHAT TEE BIG WINNERS DID
Some Went to the Bad, While
Others Prospered.
MANY INSTANCES CITED
Special Correspondence Of The Evening Star.

IamouS-lottery which attained octopus pro-
portions, kept the southern state In which
| 1t was carried on in an evil ferment for a
long period and was finally wiped out by
| the ban of the federal government on Its
mailing business talked to the writer the
| other afternoon about some Of the New
York folks who profited by their winnings
out Of the demoralzing institution. This
| one-time agent of the Gargantuan gambling
scheme is now engaged in reputable busi-
ness, so that, naturally enough, he is will
ing that his friends should forget that he
was ever connected with so shady and gen.
orally condemned an outfit as the braZen
lottery that John Wanamaker squelched.
There's no doubt" said this ex-agent Of
the big gambling organization that
great many individuals throughout the
country who got the right numbers and
found themselves, for the first time in their
lives. on velvet when the results of the
drawings were announced went up in the
air, SO to speak, over their good luck. There
were plenty of them who couldn't stand
prosperity, and who went to the bad pretty
swiftly upoa getting possession of the rolls
of money their tickets called for That end
of it, you'll recall, was pretty well exploited
in the newspapers even when the old game
was at the apex of its prosperity, and 1t
was dWelt upon with great insistence and
a wealth of detail when the lottery began
to be raped all along the line.
Bred Many. Coal Oil Johnnies.
This fellow or that, winner of one of
the big prizes, would be portrayed as max
ing sort of Coal Oil Johnny of himself
while his money lasted, and then, after his
big whizz and the inevitable giving out Of
his winnings, he would be pictured as re-
turning to his little old job. gloomy mo-
rose and out of tune with himself and his
humble station for the remainder of his
life. Some of these stories We're true, and
a good many of them were not true. 1 am
willing to admit that perhaps in a majority
or cases the money won out of the old lot
terry was source of more harm than good
TO the winners, but this wasn't the rule by
long shot.
Take New York city alone I dfstrib-
uted tens OF thousands of the tickets here.
Even in proportion to its great population
New York was the biggest buyer of tick
cts in the United States with the single
exception or New Orleans, where every
body, black and white, took a monthly
hack at the drawings A good many of the
capital prizes drifted this way Hundreds
OF the larger, prizes were taken down by
New York investors in the tickets, and
thousands of the minor numbers. calling
each for a few hundred dollars, We're
cashed here. Out of curiosity 1 have kept
pretty close track of the persons who got
goodly sums of money out of the lottery
and while there We're many conspicuous
exceptions, most OF the big New York win
ners used their winnings with common
sense and added toGthe money. One Of the
exceptions, as you'll perhaps remember
was that siXty-year-old deacon of a 5th
avenue church, who pulled out S25 900 on
his ticket and then promptly proceeded
to incarnadine New York after his peace
ful, conservative life. He kept them busy
UP around the fTenderloin for six months.
When, awakening one morning to find him.
self broke, he promptly became good again
Case of Seventh Avenue Haberdasher
Another case was that Of the 7th ave-
nue. haberdasher on small scale who won
$4,000, and who spent the entire amount
inside Of two months riding around the
country on special trains, which he char
tered for his exclusive use I could multi
ply instances like these but they were all
humorously dWelt upon at the time. The
cases, however. In which the New York
winners used their winnings to advantage
and with as much caution as If they'd
worked for and saved the money all their
lives, have scarcely been told about at all
I'll Just run over few Of them.
Every once in a while see reclining in
beautiful victoria hauled by a pair Of
blooded horses and driving through the
park or up on the Harlem avenues with
her handsome married daughter at her
side and an overfed, blinking pug dog in
her lap, an old Irish woman who did nv
washing and ironing more than twenty
years ago. She lived down Cherry Hill
way then, hard-working widow with nu-
merous mouths to feed. She won a $50 900
prize. I sold her the ticket-rather. by her
particular desire let her have it, instead
washing that I owed her. I did this re-
luctantly. for I didn't believe that a wo-
man who had to work so hard for a living
had any right to be fooling around with
lottery tickets.
"She insisted, however, and she won the
$4,000 She knew what money meant
you'd better believe. She moved her little
tribe into a small frame house UP in Har-
1nr1 nj, Nta6 n,Yf l.
1t easy for a while, and handed over the
remaining $4,000 to the man who was then
| corporation counsel Of New York whose
washing and ironing she did. He was a
Of the $40 900 into Harlem real estate that
he knew was going to begin booming pretty
soon. 1t happened as he had figured 1t ont
The boom came, and inside of three years
the ex-washerwoman's Harlem property
was worth $250,000 spot cash any minute
she asked for it.
Sold Out at the Right Time
"She drew out at the psychological mo-
ment, as they say, cashed in and reinyested
her money in first mortgages on gilt-edged
| real estate-and there you are She Is un-
der seventy today, healthy as a girl fresh
from Vassar, has married her dauehters
of to the right kind of men and put her
boys in business for themselves, goes over
seas to the ould sod for visit every few
years. and. altogether, has as good a time
Of 1t as any man or woman on Manhattan
| Island.
There was Adolph Claus, who was driy.
ing brewerBswasDn about the streets OF
New York aBrd gnlping down, after the
| manner Of his kind. about hundred
| glasses Of beer day just to keep happy.
when 1000 game his way on a ticket that
1 purveyed to him. Adolph folded it into
neat little roll with couple of rubber
bands around TIT, went out to Chicago. pick
ed out the spot where he wanted to start
the restaurant he'd been dreaming about
all his life, got SO rich with the restaurant
that he couldn't be bothered with it any
more and turned It tsover to his daughters
husband, andt che'shiiving in Berlin today
with more fat smiles Of contentment
,Mreathing ,y his eountsnanee than you've any
summers ago; and he gave me such a
whirl Of It, simply because I'd been the
that winning ticket. that I had to break
away and take the waters for two weeks
to get right again
"one Of the biggest dealers in poultry on
Long Island, II not in the United states. is
a man who got his start at that business on
$4,000 that he won out of the lottery on q
I