Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1916-03-18
TO STOP LOTTERIES
Foreign Agents Give Post Office
Officials Much Trouble.
Vigilance and Drastic Methods Of the
One Almost Matched by tho In
0cnulty Of the Other-
Fraud Orders Help.

Washington.-The post office depart
nlent is determined to stop the opera
ton of European lottery agents in tn
United States, and so stringent hav
become the departments rulings il
this matter that a newspaper wa
warned by the department recent.
that it must not print again the re
suit Of lottery winnings abroad. Thu
same dispatch was published in man!
other papers, but the postmaster o
the city in which the newspaper re
ferred to is published came near con
fiscating the entire mail edition of the
paper in his town. -..a
Either through ignorance of Ameri
can laws or through hope of evad
ing those same statutes, foreign lot
terry concerns annually flood the
United States with thousands of cir
culars advertising foreign lotteries
There is no check on the mailing OF
these advertisements abroad, as the
foreign postal laws do not prevent the
use Of the mails for such purposes.
Usually the foreign lottery men will
mail big batch of circulars to the
United States, addressed to promi.
nent business men in various cities.
The usual appeal of the advertise.
ments is based on the statement that
many of the wealthy families Of for.
eign countries are participating and
that the winnings are so considerable
that well-to-do business man can
afford to take a small chance.
The very volume of these circulars
Is what usually results in their de-
lection. When quantity is received
at New York or some other port of
mail entry the post Office officials usu.
ally suspect their real nature, and
across the face of each letter they
stamp a notice to the postmaster ct
the letters destination that it is sup.
posed to contain unavailable matter.
This means that when the postmaster
at Chicago, for instance, or one of his
comes across the letter il
Is held and the addresses required
to come to the office and open the let
ter in the presence of post office Off
cial. In this way the department of.
ficials learn the contents, and in case
the letter was mailed by lottery con-
Germ abroad the department issues a
fraud order against it.
It is impossible, of course, to stor
all mail matter COMING into the Uni.
ted States from these firms. In fact
a great deal may slip in after the
passing of the fraud order, because
the lottery concern is usually wise
enough to keep its name off the out
side of the nevelope. But no matter
how it may flood the country with
literature it is altogether another mat
ter for the recipient on this side to
answer. ... .-..-
Notice Of the fraud order has been
issued meanwhile to the postmaster
at New York and to all other points
of foreign mail entry and egress. The
will not permit the dis.
patching Of letters or mail OF any
kind to the concern or individuals
who have been posted" A prosecu-
ton, however, cannot follow on evil
dence contained in the letter adj
dressed to the lottery concern. The
American may be mailing money for
q lottery ticket and thereby violating
the law, but the department cannot
open the letter. 1t is properly stamped
and returned to the sender with a
notice that no mail is carried by the
government for the individual! or cor
poration to which it is addressed. And
that usually ends the efforts of the
American to get a ticket, unless he
happens to have a friend abroad, or
unless he cares to use the cables,
which is very expensive proposition.
In this country the law is so gen.
orally known that few persons try to
put across an actual lottery. They
usually try to rig up virtual lottery
so disguised as to escape the detec-
ton of the department. 1t speaks
we'll for American ingenuity, how
ever, to say that the variety and
number Of these home made
schemes defy enumeration.
Many of them masquerade as con-
tests of skill, and some are so skill
fully rugged up from a legal point
of view that it requires the closest
analysis and study to arrive at their
real nature. These include so-caNed
investment schemes, homebuyins
propositions, endiess-chain ideas and
the like. Newspapers are frequent
offenders in their efforts to increase
circulation. A warning, however,
from the post Office officials is usually
sufficient to cause an abandonment OF
the scheme.
One newspaper, however, Appeared
to the courts from the decision OF
the post Office department not to per
NIT copies of the paper to go through
the mails so long as it published a
scheme, which the department said
was a lottery. The court refused. ia
hold for the publisher.
Forty Miles for Bath.
nofp,an Ar;, How, uo,,ld Won like