LOTTERY. 



mg the skin, by cleansing it of those 

 deformities which a distempered blood 

 sometimes throws upon it, or rather 

 are made by a preternatural secretion. 

 There is reason to believe, that almost 

 till the lotions advertised for sale as 

 quack medicines, contain much delete- 

 rious matter, such as muriated mercury, 

 and therefore ought never to be had re- 

 course to. 



LOTTERY, a game of hazard, in which 

 small sums are adventured for the chance 

 of obtaining a larger value, either in mo- 

 ]\ey or other articles. Lotteries are form- 

 ed on various plans ; but in general they 

 consist of a certain number of tickets, 

 which are drawn at the same time, with a 

 corresponding number of blanks and 

 prizes mixed together, and by which the 

 fate of the tickets is determined. This 

 species of gaming has been sanctioned by 

 the governments of France, Holland, 

 Great Britain, and other countries, as a 

 means of raising money for public pur- 

 poses ; as, from the contributions being 

 voluntary, it is always easier to obtain mo- 

 ney in this way than by new taxes : it is, 

 however, liable to the serious objection, 

 that it tempts many persons to lose more 

 than they can conveniently spare, par- 

 ticularly among the lower classes of socie- 

 ty, who are led to neglect the gains of 

 honest industry for the chance of acquir- 

 ing sudden riches by a prize in the lot- 

 tery. 



The proposals for the first public lotte- 

 ry in England were published in 1567 and 

 1568, and it was drawn in 1569, at the 

 west door of St. Paul's cathedral. The 

 tickets were sold at ten shillings each, 

 and there were no blanks. The prizes 

 consisted chiefly of plate; and the profits 

 of it were intended for the repair of the 

 havens of the kingdom, and other public 

 works. In 1612, King James granted per- 

 mission for a lottery, to be held at the 

 west end of St. Paul's, of which the high- 

 est prize was of the value of four thousand 

 crowns, in plate : this was for the assist- 

 ance of the Virginia company, who were 

 licensed to open lotteries in any part of 

 England, by which means they raised 

 29,000/. At length these lotteries came 

 to be considered a public evil ; they at- 

 tracted the attention of parliament, were 

 represented by the commons as a griev- 

 ance, and in 1620 were suspended by an 

 order of council. In 1630, however, 

 Charles I. granted a special licence for a 

 lottery, or lotteries, " according to the 

 course of other lotteries heretofore used 

 or practised," for defraying the expenses 



of a project for conveying water to Lon- 

 don. 



Soon after the revolution lotteries were 

 resorted to, among other expedients, for 

 raising part of the extraordinary sums ne- 

 cessary for the public service, by which 

 the disposition for this species of gambling 

 was greatly encouraged and extended ; 

 and private lotteries, formed on the most 

 delusive and fraudulent principles, be- 

 came so general, not only in London, but 

 in all the other principal towns of En- 

 gland, that parliament found it neceseary, 

 in 1698, to pass an act for suppressing 

 them ; by which a penalty of 500/. was 

 laid on the proprietors of any such lotte- 

 ries, and of 20/. on every adventurer in 

 them ; notwithstanding which, the dispo- 

 sition to fraud on the one hand, and for 

 adventure on the other, continued to pre- 

 vail, and small lotteries were carried on 

 under the denomination of sales of gloves, 

 fans, cards, plate, and other articles. This 

 was attempted to be checked by a clause 

 of an act passed in 1712, which only gave 

 rise to a new mode of carrying on this 

 kind of gaming. The adventure was now 

 made to depend on the drawing of the 

 government lottery ; and the selling and 

 buying of chances and parts of chances of 

 tickets in the state lotteries became a ge- 

 neral practice, till it was prohibited by ah 

 act passed in 1718, by which all undertak- 

 ings resembling lotteries, or being depen- 

 dent on the state lottery, were strictly 

 prohibited, under the penalty of 100Z. over 

 and above all penalties enjoined by former 

 acts of parliament against private lotte- 

 ries. 



During the reign of Queen Anne, the 

 lotteries were generally for terminable 

 annuities, to which both blanks and prizes 

 were entitled, at different rates : thus, in 

 1710, the lottery consisted of 150,000 

 tickets, valued at 10/. each ; every ticket 

 being entitled to an annuity for thirty -two 

 years, the blanks at 14s. per annum, 

 and the prizes to greater annuities, from 

 51. to 1,OOOJ. per annum. This was the 

 first lottery for which the Bank of En- 

 gland received the subscriptions for go- 

 vernment. In the following year, the 

 whole of the money advanced for the 

 tickets was to be repaid, both in blanks 

 and prizes, in thirty-two years, with in- 

 terest at 6 per cent, and an additional 

 sum of nearly half a million to be divided 

 in order to form the prizes; which addi- 

 tional capital was to be paid, with the like 

 interest, within the same period as the 

 original sum. In this manner, which was 

 continued in several of the subsequent 



