CHAPTER XVI. LOTTERIES AND LOTTERY INSURANCES.

of very small fortunes, to whom the loss of five or six pounds is of great consequence, besides the disturbance of their minds; much less is it advisable or desirable for either poor or rich to contribute to the exorbitant tax of more than two hundred thousand pounds, which the first engrossers of lottery tickets, and the brokers and dealers, strive to raise out of the pockets of the poor chiefly, and the silly rich partly, by artfully enhancing the price of tickets above the original cost.” The first price of tickets in this lottery was ten pounds. On their rise a Mr Holland publicly offered in an advertisement to wager four hundred guineas that four hundred tickets when drawn did not amount to nine pounds fifteen shillings on an average, prizes and blanks. As might have been expected, his challenge was never accepted. On the 11th of the next month (November) the drawing began, and notwithstanding the public-spirited efforts of individuals, societies, and papers which did not receive any benefit in the way of advertisements, to check the exorbitancy of the ticket-mongers, the price rose steadily and ultimately to sixteen guineas a ticket. All means were tried by the disinterested to cure this infatuation by writing and advertising; and on the first day of drawing, it was publicly averred that near eight thousand tickets were in the South Sea House, and upwards of thirty thousand pawned at bankers, &c., that nine out of ten of the ticket-holders were not able to go to the wheel, and that not one of them durst stand the drawing above six days. These dealers seem to have had an awkward knack of selling the same ticket to