CHAPTER XVI. LOTTERIES AND LOTTERY INSURANCES.

more than one instance the utterers being detected, were with the forgers tried and cast for death. A notable instance of this kind of fraud was made public in 1777, in the January of which year two Jews, Joseph Arones and Samuel Noah, were examined at Guildhall before the Lord Mayor, charged with counterfeiting the lottery ticket No. 25,590, a prize of £2000, with intent to defraud Mr Keyser, an office-keeper, who had examined the ticket carefully, and had taken it into the Stock Exchange to sell, when Mr Shewell happened to come into the same box, and hearing the office-keeper’s offer, asked to look at the ticket, as he recollected buying one of the same number a day or two before. This very fortunately led to the discovery of the fraud, and the two Jews were committed to take their trial. The number was so artfully altered from 23,590 that not the least erasure could be discerned. Arones was but just come to England, and Noah was said to be a man of property. In the February the two were tried at the Old Bailey for forgery and fraud. Their defence was that Arones found the ticket, and persons were produced to swear to the fact, which they did positively and circumstantially, that the prisoners were discharged. At the same sessions Daniel Denny was tried for forging, counterfeiting, and altering a lottery ticket with intent to defraud; and being found guilty, was condemned. In later days the small cards given on race-courses—and a few years back in the streets—by turf bookmakers to their customers were very successfully imitated, sometimes the number of a ticket which was known to be held by a winner