. This
they might do with stolen money. But cases of even this kind, are rare.
The far greater part of the money drawn in the form of prizes in
lotteries, only makes its possessor more avaricious, covetous, or
oppressive than before. Money obtained in this manner commonly ruins
mind, body, or estate; sometimes all three.

Lottery schemes have been issued in the single State of New York, in
twelve years, to the amount of $37,000,000. If other States have
engaged in the business, in the same proportion to their population,
the sum of all the schemes issued in the United States within that time
has been $240,000,000. A sum sufficient to maintain in comfort, if not
affluence, the entire population of some of the smaller States for more
than thirty years.

Now what has been gained by all this? It is indeed true, that the
discount on this sum, amounting to $36,000,000, has been expended in
paying a set of men for _one_ species of labor. If we suppose their
average salary to have been $500, no less than 6,000 clerks, managers,
&c., may have obtained by this means, a support during the last twelve
years. But what have the 6,000 men _produced_ all this while? Has not
their whole time been spent in receiving small sums (from five to fifty
dollars) from individuals, putting them together, as it were, in a
heap, and afterwards distributing a part of it in sums, with a few
exceptions, equally small?--Have they added one dollar, or even one
cent to the original stock? I have already admitted, that he who makes
two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, is a benefactor to
his country; but these men have not done so much as that.

A few draw prizes, it has been admitted. Some of that few make a good
use of them. But the vast majority are injured. They either become less
active and industrious, or more parsimonious and miserly; and not a few
become prodigals or bankrupts at once. In any of these events, they are
of course unfitted for the essential purposes of human existence. It is
not given to humanity to _bear_ a sudden acquisition of wealth. The
best of men are endangered by it. As in knowledge, so in the present
case, what is gained by hard digging is usually retained; and what is
gained easily usually goes quickly. There is this difference, however,
that the moral character is usually lost with the one, but not always
with the other.

These are a part of the evils connected with lotteries. To compute
their sum total