by
gambling in lottery tickets, know nothing of those mystical combinations
of numbers, on which their fate is suspended. Utter strangers as they
are to all the "business transactions" of the lottery system, if cheated
at all, they are cheated without remedy.

3. The lottery system operates as a most oppressive tax upon the
community. This tax is paid, not by the rich and luxurious--but it is
paid mainly by those who are struggling for independence, and by those
who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow--by the servants in our
kitchens--by clerks and apprentices, and day-labourers; by mechanics and
traders; by the men and women who work in our factories; and in too many
instances, it is to be feared, by our hardy yeomanry, who, impatient of
the slow profits of agriculture, vainly expect from the chances of the
lottery that which is never denied to the efforts of industry. The
amount of pauperism and crime, of mental agitation and perchance of
mental insanity, which the lottery system must create among these
numerous classes, it would not be easy to calculate.

4. Lotteries are the parent of much of the pauperism which is to be
found in this young, and free, and prosperous land. It entails poverty
upon multitudes directly, by exhausting their limited means in abortive
experiments to get rich by "high prizes"--and, yet more, by withdrawing
multitudes from a dependence on labour, and accustoming them to hope
miracles of good fortune from chance. After repeated disappointments,
they discover, when it is too late to profit from the discovery, how
sadly they have been duped, and how recklessly they have abandoned their
confidence in themselves, and in that gracious Being who never forsakes
those who put their trust in him. They sink into despondency, and,
seeking to forget themselves, they bring upon their faculties the brutal
stupor of intoxication, or they exhilarate them by its delirious gayety.
Suicide is often the fearful issue. Dupin ascribes a hundred cases of
suicide _annually_ to the lottery system in the single city of Paris.
Many years ago a lottery scheme, displaying splendid prizes, was formed
in London. Adventures to a very large amount was the consequence, and
the night of the drawing was signalized by fifty cases of suicide!

5. Success in lotteries is hardly less fatal than failure. The fortunate
adventurer is never satisfied. He ventures again and again, till ruin
overtakes him. After all the tempti