CHAPTER XVI. LOTTERIES AND LOTTERY INSURANCES.

lottery, and Horace Walpole, writing about one for an organ, says: “I am now in pursuit of getting the finest piece of music that ever was heard; it is a thing that will play eight tunes. Handel and all the great musicians say, that it is beyond anything they can do; and this may be performed by the most ignorant person; and when you are weary of those eight tunes, you may have them changed for any other that you like. This I think much better than going to an Italian opera or an assembly. This performance has been lately put into a lottery, and all the royal family choose to have a great many tickets rather than to buy it, the price being I think £1000, infinitely a less sum than some bishoprics have been sold for. And a gentleman won it, who I am in hopes will sell it, and if he will, I will buy it, for I cannot live to have another made, and I will carry it into the country with me.” As Walpole lived for sixty years after this, he must have lived to see much more wonderful instruments built, and possibly offered as prizes in lotteries. In June 1743 the price of lottery tickets rose from £10 to £11, 10s., the prizes being in no way increased, and a hint to the unwary was published, in which it was shown that adventurers “gamed at 50 per cent. loss; paying at that price 2s. 6d. to play for 5s.; the money played for being only three pound, besides discount and deductions.” The practice of giving £1000 each to the first and last drawn tickets led to a curious