The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1903-07-05
SWEENEY S LUCK is
CAUSE OF (iANBl Ing
IN ILLINOIS TOWN
sd
RushyiIIe Is Rattle Mad by Rea-
son of the Good Fortune That
Followed the Investment of
$500 on a Ghaene.

hOSf1V4LLEyF III, & july Nv men
Thomas Sweeney had the nerve to buy
$500 worth of lottery tickets not long
ago, while this town was eraffIe-mad,
the staid old residents of this bucolic
burg. thought he was doing worse than
buying pig in q poke. But Sweeney
had an idea of raising the wind in an
easy way, and he won about every
thing in town except the prairie breeze
and the postoff1ce, which, for some
reason or other, were not ticketed in
the contest.
Rushvi1le is not a mighty city, so to
speak, but it is the champion all-round
lottery town in the state of Illinois
Not great while ago some one pro-
posed a rattle of gigantic proportions,
and before the thing was through al
most every man, woman, and child in
the county held tickets upon which
they hoped to draw anything from a
box of corn salve to the Rushville
electric light plant. Some of these
people who were seized with the sport
ing fever did draw something or other.
but Thomas Sweehsys $500 worth of
made a fortune, and good sized one,
IOo, Ool VI Ills iictHdtu.
But is. was hot,sbecause Sweeney
pulled off all the Fpgizes that the good
people of Rushviltti are still talking
about the rattle. adThey see something
more than that In the end. They fear
the utter demorali7ation of the town is
going to be the result.
Fear for9the Town.
1t is pointed out that the innocent look
ing rattle tickets have engendered feel
ing for these chaneseontests that threat
Monte Carlo. This4Wa the first big thing
of the kind ever pulled off here It is
true. too true; that turkey raff1es and
swapping jackkniveSo sight unseen have
been aii.year- roundlp pa shines here from
time immemorial. but no one with a
strict religious training looked upon Rush
vile today as being the same straight
laced town it was before the recent gi-
gantic scheme was carried out.
None of the church members remem-
Der having heard preacher raise his
voice against Sweeneys purchase of $500
worth of tickets and no one has been
greatly exercised over the affair until
within the last few weeks. Now one
hears the subject discussed constantly
I'll tell you. it's worse than this Derby
business" says one good citizen.
Its better'n. anything John w. Gates
ever got up agin'," says another.
1T beats goin' to the state legislature
~
And yet everybody is dead willing 10
buy a. new batch OF tickets as soon, ,os
some one can find in Nashville something
that hasn't been ratified off. '513 :" - -
The one man who looks serenely upon
the whole affair is Sweeney He is a
prosperous merchant here and a conServa-
tive one. He went after the prizes hung
before the eyes of the Rushvilleites with a
business mans intention, and he won,
But Sweeney didn't buy his tickets like
the others did. He relied upon his ma
thematics littIet and he theoriZed not a
little on the law ofachance. .-v1t-a
The scontestg had gone on for several
weeks before sweeney decided to take a
flyer. Finally on the last evening before
the sale of tickets was to come to a close
Sweeney showed roll of greenbacks into
his pocket strolled over to the office Of
the man who was engineering the scheme,
and asked how the affair was coming out.
He was told the people were a little slow
and didn't seem to be hOhning for a
chance to own the electric light plant and
the various other. properties that COM
pose the town of Rushville. Sweeney
then ran his hand into his pocket flashed
the roll Of greenbacks. and nonchalantly
said: Gimme about $500 WORTH
Before. the tickets were counted out
the news had spread from one end of
the main street to the other, and the
weather prophets began talking about
Sweeneys nerve. They didn't admire his
He hiked back to ,his store and went to
selling merchandise as if he had only step
ped. around the corner to buy a scent
package of smoking tobacco.
The next day the lottery committee
composed of john Bagby, Charles Wells
and B. O. Willard ewent to work award
ing the prizes. They found Sweeney had
we won nearly nearly everything in sight The $50
enough town lots to start a. good sized
town of his own. He won the majority
of the other prizes from a piano to the
bottle of olives heqd1ad donated to ti~
rattle committee FROM his own store. He
won so persistentlyl that the local news
papers exhausted their supply of letter
"e's" in setting his name for publication.
All told. that $500 bfought him property
valued close to 0,000s
Sweeney's good duck has enriched the
picturesque slang 5pfs Egypt with new
phrase. A lucky mapoi is called a sweeney.
When man drops "a dime into the contri-
button box at church or donates to the
political campaign find he says, That's
for Sweeney" meaning that it is to go
with the rest of the pile II sweeneyed
him." is an expression frequently heard
at card parties when one is lucky and
wine, or at church sociables when per-
son solves all the chrades.
At any rate, Rushyille now holds the
banner for being the best rattle town in
the state, and, while everybody couldn't
win in the last contest, there is not a soul
in the town that has not worn out more
than one lead pencil figuring how much
he could have won if he had only had
SweeneyS nerve.