Handbills—Metrical list of lottery-office keepers—Bish’s manifesto—“Epitaph in Memory of the State Lottery”—“Little Goes”—The Times thereon—Their effect on the public.
Here are some of the handbills of 1826:—
The following gives us a list of the principal lottery-office keepers:—
Bish, anent the “Last Lottery of all,” wrote the following manifesto:—
“At the present moment, when so many articles, necessary to the comforts of the poorer classes, are more or less liable to taxation, it may, surely, be a question whether the abolition of Lotteries, by which the State was a gainer of nearly half a million per annum, be, or be not, a wise measure!
“’Tis true that, as they were formerly conducted, the system was fraught with some evil. Insurances were allowed upon the fate of numbers through protracted drawings; and, as the insurances could be effected for very small sums, those who could ill afford loss, imbibed a spirit of gambling, which the legislature, very wisely, most effectually prevented, by adopting, in the year 1809, the present improved mode of deciding the whole Lottery in one day.
“As it is at present conducted, the Lottery is voluntary Tax, contributed to only by those who can afford it, and collected without trouble or expense; one by which many branches of the revenue are considerably aided, and by means of which hundreds of persons find employment. The wisdom of those who, at this time, resign the income produced by it, and add to the number of the unemployed, may, as I have observed in a former address, surely be questioned.
“Mr. Pitt, whose ability in matters of financial arrangements few will question, and whose morality was proverbial, would not, I am bold to say, have yielded to an outcry against a tax, the continuing of which would have enabled him to let the labourer drink his humble beverage at a reduced price, or the industrious artisan to pursue his occupation by a cheaper light. But we live in other times—in the age of improvement! To stake patrimonial estates at hazard or écarté, in the purlieus of St. James’s, is merely amusement, but to purchase a ticket in the Lottery, by which a man may gain an estate at a trifling risk, is—immoral! Nay, within a few hours of the time I write, were not many of our nobility and senators, some of whom, I dare say, voted against Lotteries, assembled betting thousands upon a horse race?
“In saying so much, it may be thought that I am somewhat presumptuous, or, that I take a partial view of the case. It is, however, my honest opinion, abstracted from personal considerations, that the measure of abolishing Lotteries is an unwise one, and, as such, I give it to that public, of whom I have been, for many years, the highly favoured servant, and for whose patronage, though Lotteries cease, my gratitude will ever continue.
“As one of the last contractors, I have assisted in arranging a Scheme, &c.! &c.!! &c.!!!”
It was no good moaning over the dead lottery; it was dead—there was an end of it; and there was nothing more but to bury it decently, and write its epitaph—which was duly done.
We have thus traced the State lotteries to their end. But there are many things connected with the lottery outside of them which have yet to be mentioned—for instance, the illegitimate lotteries called “Little Goes,” which for a time flourished in the last and the commencement of this present century. Here is one of them. On October 14, 1770, a case was determined at the general quarter session of the peace for the county of Wilts, held at Marlborough. A quack doctor had been convicted before Thomas Johnson, Esq., of Bradford, in the penalty of £200 for disposing of plate, etc., by means of a device or lottery; and, by a second information, convicted of the same offence before Joseph Mortimer, Esq., of Trowbridge. To both these convictions he appealed to the justices at the general quarter session of the peace, when, after a trial of near ten hours, the bench unanimously confirmed the conviction on both informations, by which the appellant was subjected to the penalties of £200 on each, and costs.
The Times newspaper was especially indignant at these “Little Goes,” and I make two or three excerpts therefrom on this subject.
Times, July 22, 1795.—“Private Lotteries. Amongst the various species of gaming that have ever been practised, we think none exceeds the mischiefs and calamities that arise from the practice of private lotteries, which at present are carrying on, in various parts of the town, to very alarming extents, much to the discredit of those whose province it is to suppress such nefarious practices, as they cannot be ignorant of such transactions. 'The little go,’ which is the technical term for a private lottery, is calculated only for the meridian of those understandings who are unused to calculate and discriminate between right and wrong, and roguery and fair dealing; and, in this particular case, it is those who compose the lower order of society whom it so seriously affects, and on whom it is chiefly designed to operate. No man of common sense can suppose that the lottery wheels are fair and honest, or that the proprietors act upon principles anything like honour or honesty; for, by the art and contrivance of the wheels, they are so constructed with secret springs, and the application of gum, glue, etc., in the internal part of them, that they can draw the numbers out or keep them in at pleasure, just as it suits their purposes; so that the insurer, robbed and cajoled by such unfair means, has not the most distant chance of ever winning; the whole being a gross fraud, and imposition, in the extreme. We understand that the most notorious of these standards of imposition are situated in Carnaby Market, Oxford Road, in the Borough, Islington, Clerkenwell, and various other places, most of which are under the very nose of magistracy, in seeming security, bidding defiance to law, and preying upon the vitals of the poor and ignorant.
“We hope the magistrates of each jurisdiction, and those who possess the same power, will perform their duty on behalf of the poor, over whom they preside, and put a stop to such a growing and alarming evil, of such pernicious and dangerous tendency: particularly, as the proprietors are well-known bad characters, consisting of needy beggars, desperate swindlers, gamblers, sharpers, notorious thieves, and common convicted felons, most of whose names stand recorded in the Newgate Calendar for various offences of different descriptions.”
Times, August 11, 1795.—“On Friday night last, in consequence of searching warrants from the parochial magistrates of St. James’s, Westminster, upwards of thirty persons were apprehended at the house of one M’Call, No. 2, Francis Street, near Golden Square, and in the house of J. Knight, King Street, where the most destructive practices to the poor were carrying on, that of Private Lotteries (called Little Goes). Two wheels, with the tickets, were seized on the premises. Upon examination of those persons, who proved to be the poor deluded objects that had been there plundered, they were reprimanded and discharged.
“The wives of many industrious mechanics, by attending these nefarious houses, have not only been duped out of their earnings (which ought to have been applied to the providing bread for their families), but have even pawned their beds, wedding-rings, and almost every article they were possessed of for that purpose.”
Times, August 13, 1795.—“The term of little goes for the private lotteries is apt enough, for the poor devils who risk their property there have but little, and that little goes to nought.
“If the wheels of fortune, and the cash, seized at the private lotteries, became the property of the police runners, the old adage will be strongly verified, 'What is got over the devil’s back, will be spent under his belly.’”
Gambling was then a national madness. Not content with the State lotteries, which then took forty-two days to draw, with its concomitant excitement of insurance, these Little Goes were introduced between the drawings of the State lottery. They were known to be illegal, and we have seen in what terms a leading newspaper speaks of them, but still they existed. True, an attempt was made to put them down in 1802, by the Act 42 Geo. III. c. 119, by which they were declared public nuisances, and any person keeping an office or place for carrying on the business of such lotteries was liable to forfeit £500, and be deemed a rogue and a vagabond, within the meaning of the Vagrant Act (17 Geo. II. c. 5).
But to show how futile was this Act, the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on Lotteries, 1808, says there were little lotteries on the same plan as the great State lotteries, and drawn in the same manner. There were, generally, five or six “little goes” in the year, and they were actually set up and conducted by two or three of the licensed lottery-office keepers. The State lottery was the parent of these little ones, and they were never heard of during the drawing of the former, but the gambling fever had such a hold on the people that they could not wait for the next State lottery.