Case Name: The State vs. Dorson E. Sykes
Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
Jurisdiction: Connecticut
Decision Date: 1859-03
Citations: 28 Conn. 224
Docket Number: 
Parties: The State vs. Dorson E. Sykes.
Judges: 
Reporter: Connecticut Reports
Volume: 28
Pages: 184–188

Head Matter:
NEW LONDON COUNTY,
MARCH TERM, 1859.
Present, Storks, C. J., Ellsworth, Sanford and McCurdy, Js.
The State vs. Dorson E. Sykes.
The statute (Rev. Stat., tit. 6, § 96,) makes it a criminal offense to publish within this state, any written or printed proposals to sell or procure lottery tickets. The defendant published the following as an advertisement inja newspaper issued by him: “ Marvlaud State Lottery, R. F & Co., Managers. Caution notice. Persons living at a distance should be cautious of whom they order lottery tickets. The country is flooded with bogus lotteries. The Kentucky State Lottery, under our management, is the only lottery in the United States which is legally decided by the' Maryland drawings. Purchase in the Maryland State lotteries; then you are sure of being right. . In ordering in them you are sure of fair drawings. If you order from any licensed vender in Baltimore, do not receive any but managers’ tickets and managers’ printed certificates of packages. The latter have our lithographed signature. R. F. & Co. Managers of Maryland State Lotteries.’’ Upon a demurrer to an information charging the defendant with a violation of the statute in the above publication, the information setting out tbe publication, but aiding it by lío averments as to its meaning, it was held that, giving to its language only its natural and ordinary import, it was not a proposal to sell or procure lottery tickets within the intent of tbe statute.
The statute above referred to has reference to the tickets of foreign as well as domestic lotteries, and to those of lotteries legally established, as well as to those that are not, and to tickets of such lotteries offered for sale in other states as well as within this state—the statute forbidding the publishing within this state of proposals to sell or procure any lottery tickets whatever.
The prohibition of such publications is not unconstitutional as an infringement of the liberty of the .press.
[ *226 ] Information against the defendant under the' act, (Rev. Stat., tit. 6, § 96,) which provides that every person who shall, within this state, sell any lottery ticket or tickets, or any part, portion, or interest therein, * * * * or shall set up, exhibit or publish, or cause to be set up, exhibited or published, within this state, any written or printed proposals to buy, sell or procure any such ticket or tickets, or any part, portion or interest therein, shall be punished,” &c.
The information charged that the defendant, at Norwich, in the county of New London, did set up, exhibit and publish, and cause to be set up, exhibited and published, within this state,' certain written and printed proposals to sell and procure lottery tickets, to wit, in a certain paper entitled the Norwich Courier, and in the words and figures following, viz.: “ Maryland State Lottery, R. France & Co., Managers. Caution Notice. Persons living at a distance should be extremely cautious of whom they order lottery tickets or certificates of packages of tickets. The country is flooded with bogus and swindling lotteries. Every inducement is held out to get persons to invest money in them.' Capital prizes from $20,000 to $40,000 head their schemes, with tickets at one dollar. $100,000 capital prizes are offered, tickets $5. All such in every instance are frauds, and if money is sent to them for tickets, it is so much thrown away, without the shadow of a chance of getting a prize. Beware of all lotteries where the capital prize is unusually large in comparison to the price of tickets. In every instance where large prizes are offered for a small cost of ticket, put it down as a certain fraud. The Kentucky State Lottery for the benefit of the Shelby College, under our management, is the onlv lottery in the United States which is legally decided by the Maryland drawings ; all other lotteries which purport to be decided by the Maryland drawings are frauds. Purchase in the Maryland State Lotteries, then you are sure of being right. And in ordering in the Maryland lotteries you are sure of fair and honest drawings. One thing look to, and that is, if you order from any licensed vender in Baltimore, do not receive any but managers’ tickets and managers’ printed certificates of packages. The managers’ certificates have the numbers printed and have the lithographed signatures of R. France & Co. No one has a right to send *his individual certificates, and [ *227 3 if he does it, be sure there is a fraud at the bottom of it. R. France & Co., Managers of Maryland State Lotteries ”—against the peace, of evil example and contrary to the form and effect of the statute in such case made and provided.
The defendant demurred to the information, and the questions arising on the demurrer were reserved by the superior court for the advice of this court.
Wait and Crocker, in support of the demurrer,
contended that the lottery tickets referred to in the statute were tickets sold within this state, and no others; that this was evident from the language of the first clause of the statute, which forbids the selling of lottery .tickets within this state, while the clause upon which the information is founded forbids the publishing of proposals to sell any such tickets—meaning any tickets to be sold within the state; that, therefore, the publishing within the state of proposals to sell tickets in some other state, was not within the statute; that the statute, being a penal one, was to be strictly construed ; that, if it should be held to apply to tickets offered for sale ¡n another, state, the .publication in question was not in any proper sense a proposal to sell tickets, as none were offered for sale, nor did the advertisers pretend to have them for sale, but merely cautioned the public against buying any tickets except those of the Maryland lotteries ; and that, if the act was to be construed as prohibiting such a publication as the one in question, it was unconstitutional, as a restraint upon the freedom of the press.
Willey, state attorney, and Halsey, in support of the information,
contended that the words of the statute did not require, and upon any reasonable construction did not admit of,' a limitation of their application, to the case of lottery tickets to be sold within the state, the term “such ticket” meaning simply “ lottery ticket,” while the manifest intent of the clause in question was to prevent the placing before our citizens, by [ *228. ] such publications, inducements to purchase *any lottery tickets whatever, the whole system ■ being regarded as an evil which it was an object to suppress ; that the court should give such, a construction to the statute as would carry out its manifest object; that the publication in question was a proposal to sell tickets within the meaning of the statute, as it advised the public what tickets to buy, and indicated very clearly where they could be procured; and that the prohibition of such publications could not be regarded as, in any proper sense, an infringement of the freedom of the press.

Opinion:
Sanford, J.
We have no doubt of the constitutionality, or of the salutary tendency, of the statute upon which this prosecution is founded; And we think it clear , that the statute is applicable ,to domestic and foreign lotteries alike, and without any reference to the question whether they are, or are not, authorized by the laws of the state in which they are located, or-the question whether the tickets are to be procured or sold in this, or in any other state.
The act of publishing in this state a proposal to sell or procure any ticket in any lottery, legal, or illegal, in this state,' or out of it, is prohibited and punished by the statute. And, in our judgment, the only point in regard to which any serious question can arise is, whether the paper published by the accused is a proposal to sell or procure lottery tickets, or not. And, upon this point, we think the accused is right.
The statute is a penal one, and in order to subject the accused to its penalties, he must be shown to have offended against both its spirit and its letter.
The information indeed charges, and the demurrer admits, that the accused published an instrument which the prosecutor calls a proposal to sell and procure lottery tickets, but as he sets out that instrument, in words and figures, in the information, and without any explanatory allegations, averments or inuendoes, we have only to decide what is, upon its face, the fair import of the language of the instrument.
It is denominated by its authors a " caution notice," and, in its terms, it imports only a caution against the devices of fraudulent ticket venders, and the purchase of spurious ^lottery tickets. It suggests that the country is [' *229 ] flooded with swindling lotteries, and what lotteries and tickets should be avoided, and it informs the reader what lotteries are authorized by law, how genuine tickets in them may be distinguished from the spurious, and that purchasers in the Maryland State lotteries may be sure of fair and honest drawings. But the authors make no proposal to sell or procure lottery tickets, or any thing else. They do not profess to have such things for sale, or to be engaged in the business of selling or procuring them.
They do not even inform the reader where they reside, or transact business, nor how their address is to be ascertained. They do indeed, profess to be managers of the Maryland state lotteries, and of the Kentucky state lottery for the benefit of Shelby College. And they intimate that there are licensed ticket venders in Baltimore, but, who those licensed venders are, they do not, even intimate. And it by no means follows that managers of lotteries are, of course, sellers of lottery' tickets. They may be mere public officers, intrusted by law with specific powers, and with duties toward the public, and the individuals or corporations for whose benefit the lotteries are granted, quite incompatible with the business of ticket selling.
It may be, as the prosecutor claims, that it was the design of the authors of the paper recited in the information, to evade the law, while they served their own selfish purposes, and effected the evil which it was the object of the legislature by this statute to repress.
But this court can only execute the law as it is. If it is too narrow, the legislature.must extend it. And upon this demurrer the court can impute to the language of the recited paper, its ordinary, popular import and meaning only.
Thus construed, the instrument published by the accused was not a proposal to sell or procure lottery tickets. And the superior court should be advised that the information is insufficient.
In this opinion the other judges concurred.
Information insufficient.