ut
a few minutes and lose only a few dollars at a time, are constantly seen
in these hells. The aggregate of these slight winnings by the bank is
very great in the course of the day. Pickpockets and thieves are also
seen here in considerable numbers. They do not come to practise their
arts, for they would be shown no mercy if they should do so, but come to
gamble away their plunder, or its proceeds.

It is not necessary to speak of the evils of gambling, of the effect of
the vice upon society. I have merely to describe the practice as it
prevails here. New York is full of the wrecks it has made. Respectable
and wealthy families there are by the score whose means have been
squandered on the green cloth. There are widows and orphans here whose
husbands and fathers have been driven into suicide by gambling losses.
The State Prisons hold men whose good names have been blasted, and whose
souls have been stained with crime in consequence of this vice. Yet the
evil is suffered to grow, and no honest effort is made to check it.

II. LOTTERIES.

The lottery business of New York is extensive, and, though conducted in
violation of the law, those who carry it on make scarcely a show of
secrecy.

The principal lottery office of the city is located on Broadway, near St.
Paul's church. It is ostensibly a broker's office, and the windows
display the usual collection of gold and silver coins, bills, drafts,
etc. At the rear end of the front room is a door which leads into the
office in which lottery tickets are sold. It is a long, narrow
apartment, lighted from the ceiling, and so dark that the gas is usually
kept burning. A high counter extends along two sides of the room, and
the walls back of this are lined with handbills setting forth the schemes
of the various lotteries. Two large black-boards are affixed to the wall
back of the main counter, and on these are written the numbers as soon as
the drawings have been made. There is always a crowd of anxious faces in
this room at the hour when the drawings are received.

The regular lotteries for which tickets are sold here, are the Havana
Lottery, which is conducted by the Government of the Island of Cuba, the
Kentucky State Lottery, drawn at Covington, Kentucky, and the Missouri
State Lottery, drawn at St. Louis, Mo.

The Havana Lottery is managed on the single number plan. There are
26,000 tickets and 739 prizes. The 26,000 tickets are put in the wheel,
a