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 tempting promises of wealth, which are made by those concerned in this iniquitous system, how very few, except managers of lotteries and venders of lottery tickets, has it ever made rich! and well may it be asked, whom has it ever made more diligent in business, more contented, and respectable, and happy?

6.  Lotteries, it is believed, are rendered especially mischievous in this country by the nature of our institutions, and by the spirit of the times.  Here, the path to eminence being open to every one—­but too many are morbidly anxious to improve their condition; and by means, too, which in the wisdom of Providence were never intended to command success.  A mad desire for wealth pervades all classes—­it feeds all minds with fantastic hope; it is hostile to all patient toil, and legitimate enterprise, and economical expenditure.  It generates a spirit of reckless speculation; it corrupts the simplicity of our tastes; and, what is yet worse, it impairs, not unfrequently, in reference to the transactions of business, the obligations of common honesty.  Upon these elements of our social condition and character, the lottery system operates with malignant efficacy.