Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-11-14
LOTTERIES IN EUROPE
Are Run by the State and Are
Very Profitable.
DRAWINGS ARE FAIR
BUT THE CHANCES OF WINNING
ARE VERY SLIM.
How the People Are Led on to Hope
and Hope Again-A Long
Series.
ARE FAIR
Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star
PARIS, November 2, 1903.
The government protected lotteries of Eu-
rope are now having bad time IN FRANCE
that rich and saving land from which they
have drawn such great profits in the past
France refuses to tolerate public and gen.
eral gaming. The French government
stands practically alone among great Euro
pean powers in refusing itself the rlch
profits of a state protected lottery. And
now that 1t has awakened to the fact that
immense sums are monthly drained from
France by the deceptive touting of Hun
garian German, Spanish. Austrian and
other government-protected lottery agents
the French post office has begun an ener-
getic war upon them.
Last week a friend of mine received the
visit of little man in black
as this your check?' the little man in
black asked, showing my friend check he
had drawn some two weeks previously to
| the order of a Bremen banker for 1SO
| francs $3.50.
1T is my check" replied the other. "How
did you get hold of it?''
Are you the Paris agent of the lottery
| this Bremen banker representS?' the little
| man in black asked instead
mo- said my friend II am simple
purchaser of tickets for my personal ac-
| count. Will you tell me what right you
| have to probe into my private matters, and
| in particular, to open my letters?"
II represent the French post office au-
| thority," said the little man. "All mail adj
dressed to this party in Bremen is stopped.
| In your own interest we return you your
| check. Its comparatively large amount
| suggested this visit to you. If you were
| really buying the tickets for yourself you
have saved your money. If you are secret
! agent of the lottery, beware!'
| My friend is angry yet. He feels insulted
at the suggestion that he might be a lot
terry agent He is sending money by ex-
press to Bremen, Budapest, Madrid and
| other hopeful centers for he is lottery
ticket buyer of conviction. Meanwhile the
French post Office is doing what it can to
save French savings from the drain
My friend admits it is drain, but not an
evil one.
He Buys Hope.
IAN honest lottery is the poor mans
boom" he argues. when the poor man
pays his dollar for the fractional part of
a ticket issued by ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
lottery he gets more value for it than any
other investment could give him. What
does he buy? A chance? A ticket? No.
He buys hope! He buys splendid hope
cheap; and it lasts him thirty days! For
thirty days it is possible that he may win
fortune. Outside the lottery he knows there
is no possibility of such a possibility for
him.
Yes" I answer, "but at the end of the
| month the drawing takes place. and he
learns he has won nothing"
He has a short day of no great diSap-
pointment (this is true, as will appear in
the German SYSTEM; then he buys another
ticket and a brand-new stock of hope for
thirty days. If he takes his wife to the
theater with that dollar. or buys a chicken
TO, Sunday dinner. it is consumed on the
SPOT In the savings bank 1t is still but
measly dollar. Can it give him radiant
hope for thirty days? Can it put him in
| another class-the class of the possibly
rich? l think not"
This is one view of the matter, greatly
cultivated in Germany and Austria, where
the highest classes set the poor a good ex-
ample buying tickets. Nevertheless l find
that it is stolen from Balzac. And Balzac,
to be exact, praised in his day a very diff
ferent style of state lottery.
The lottery of Balzacs time was what is
now the state Italian lottery something
entirely different from the cynical leading
on schemes which the French post Office is
now fighting. The Italian lottery does not
seek to operate abroad. Essentially it is
the game which we call policy. Is it pos
sible, you ask. that any game can be more
basely deceptive than policy? Yes, policy
is almost innocent, compared with the in
genious swindles patronized and guaranteed
by certain European governments, whose
ORA wings themselves are absolutely honest
IF their drawings are honest how can
they be swindlers?' asks my friend
First, for the honest drawings. My friend
says:
System of Drawing.
"They are conducted on a system which
the experience of more than one hundred
years has rendered practically perfect. and
even a suspicion of trickery is precluded"
1 saw one of these drawings take place at
Gotha. In a large hall, and under the SUI
pervision of high government official, two
great wheels stood on platform. Made of
glass and metal framework, they were ca
pable of holding immense numbers of little
metal cartridges. Each little cartridge con-