of this state, and never had a prize in any one of them beyond one thousand dollars."

Another case is introduced by Mr. Gordon, which forcibly illustrates the small probability of winning any important prize.

"The evils of lottery gaming were never, perhaps, more strongly exemplified, than in the case of that infatuated man, Clew, the porter of the Bank of the United States. This individual occupied, in the Bank, a very confidential station; and although many small sums of monies were occasionally missed, under circumstances very trying to the officers, and particularly to the Tellers, yet no suspicion had attached to Clew, so exemplary had been his general conduct. One day, the officers of the Bank, in settling their daily morning balances with the city banks, missed two notes of a thousand dollars each. ***** In a few hours both the missing notes were presented by two lottery brokers, who, on being asked from whom they had been received, stated from Clew, the porter of the United States' Bank. To each of these brokers he was indebted for lottery tickets more than a thousand dollars, and when thus detected there were found in his possession 426 whole tickets, 462 half tickets, 1361 quarter tickets, and 78 eighths of tickets, in various lotteries, making in all, two thousand, three hundred and twenty-seven chances, which after having been all drawn and examined by order of the Bank, produced less than twenty dollars! Facts, afterwards disclosed, satisfied the officers of the bank, that this man had been for years led away by this worst of all species of gaming, because the most seductive and the least odious, and had constantly been defrauding the Institution that confided in him, of sums of money for the purpose of carrying on his nefarious speculations.

"It is scarcely necessary to add, that his villanies met with the reward consequent upon them,-trial, conviction, imprisonment,-and that, with blasted reputation and ruined character, he yet lives, a lasting monument of the miserable effects of this pernicious system."

A lottery dealer in Philadelphia, stated that, for nine months he had been extensively engaged in the business, and yet not a ticket which he had sold, or which remained on hand, had drawn a single prize; and yet he had sold enough tickets to support his family from the profits of the sale. This certainly does not exhibit a very encouraging prospect for adventur

ers.

But since the number of tickets is not published by the managers, how can you tell whether the number of the ticket which you have bought is contained in the lottery? You cannot tell. You are entirely at the mercy of the vender. He may print a few figures on a card, and sell them as a ticket, as long as he can find any persons credulous enough to purchase. This has been frequently done. A man in the state of New-York sold nineteen eighths of a ticket. By accident, this ticket drew a prize of $400. The simpletons, with their nineteen eighths, came to his shop to receive their money. But this honest lottery broker, concluded to decamp. It is perfectly astonishing that men can be found to throw themselves thus, so completely

at the mercy of swindlers, as adventurers in lotteries must necessarily do.

You see the scheme of a lottery, and, as it is exhibited to you, it is very alluring. But, how do you know whether there be in reality, any such lottery in existence. Many such spurious schemes have been got up, and the tickets sold, and the money pocketed, and not a single copper of prize money distributed. Mr. Gordon states facts upon this subject, which we should think were enough to open the eyes of any community. An advertisement of this kind, appeared in some of the Connecticut papers, in 1828. "The Vermont Lottery, Class No. 2, for 1828, is to be drawn on the 17th inst.-the profits devoted to religious purposes." For such a lottery as this, there never was any grant. Some time during the autumn of 1828, a person pretending to be a manager in the "Vermont State Lottery," arrived at a village in Vermont, in the evening, drew a lottery the next morning about sunrise, and then immediately commenced his journey back, towards Boston. "Of the prizes in this lottery, we understand there never was any account published by the managers or brokers!" The simpletons who purchased these tickets, have the consolation to reflect, that swindlers are pocketing their money, and laughing at their folly.

"A spurious scheme of a lottery, called 'The Green Mountain Lottery of Vermont,' was drawn, near the New York line, privately at a tavern, by two strangers. No grant for any such lottery, was in force. The two men who drew the lottery were afterwards arrested, and confined for a term in Bennington county jail. A printed statement, that the drawing took place at Arlington, was made up, and published in the city of New-York, with names annexed as witnesses-not one of whom, the inhabitants of Arlington certify, are known to them. They also certify, that no such drawing publicly took place."

"A few years ago, a bundle of tickets, purporting to be in the Massachusetts State Lottery,' was sent to a trader in the country, by a Boston broker, with instructions to sell them, and account for the proceeds. Every one knows that no such lottery has existed in this State." Now, who would suppose that any man could be so duped, as to purchase such tickets. And yet it is a fact, that the venders find simple men, and simple women enough, to exchange real money for these unreal phantoms of hope.

Many cases come to light, in which tickets have been sold after the drawing has taken place. It would indeed take pages

to enumerate the endless varieties of petty frauds, which have been practised upon the simpletons who buy lottery tickets.

But let us again suppose that you have purchased a genuine ticket, in a genuine lottery; that you have examined the scheme, and found that there is something like a fair proportion between the receipts and the expenditures. What evidence can you have that the drawing of the lottery will be honestly conducted? You cannot arrange the manner. You cannot be present; and even if you were present, there are oppor tunities of fraud, which your unpractised eye could not detect. A few years since, some private and irresponsible individuals, got up a lottery, and extensively advertised their deceptive wares. As usual, they found enough sufficiently simple to be cheated. After they had sold nearly all the tickets, the lottery was drawn. But by some unaccountable accident, the manager, with his unsold tickets, obtained all the prizes of any considerable amount. Well, what could the miserable dupes, who had bought tickets do? Why, they might whistle, and thus practise philosopy, and learn common sense. But really, this must have been a very interesting speculation to the lottery managers, to obtain all the money for the tickets, and draw all the prizes into the bargain! Our only wonder is, that a Yankee can be so cheated.

But, suppose again, that the lottery is fairly drawn, and a prize falls to you; what is your evidence that you will ever receive it? A ticket, not long since, was presented to a broker in Boston, who said that it was entitled to a prize of $2, and accordingly paid to the holder that sum, 15 per cent. less, and took the ticket. It was afterwards ascertained, that the ticket was actually entitled to a prize of $200. The broker was again applied to, but he denied ever selling, or ever having seen, any such ticket." Now, with all these opportunities for fraud, how small is the chance, that the purchaser of lottery tickets will ever get any thing for his money, but disappointment and shame.

But we must change our strain of remark. The folly of such speculations is a fit subject for ridicule; but alas! the sin and ruin in which the dupes of the lottery are involved, demands a more mournful tribute. You have a wife and children, depending upon you for support; and what right have you to turn aside from the sphere of honorable labor, and hazard your property, and their happiness in games of chance? You have children looking to you for instruction and encour

agement in virtuous principles; and what right have you, to guide them by a father's example, to the vices of the gambler? Think you they will be slow in following your footsteps into these exciting and bewildering labyrinths of crime? When a young man gets his hopes excited, and his feelings interested in these iniquitous speculations, the career of the drunkard is hardly more surely and more quickly fatal than his. He is hurried on by an impulse, which is allied to madness. He will go from step to step in fraud to gratify his passion, till in the fevered delirium of his mind, he closes the wretched career by self-destruction. Oh, what an awful catalogue of miserable victims might here be introduced! An army might be marshalled, haggard with misery, wan with despair. The human mind cannot gauge the dimensions of this woe. There is no

vice but that of intemperance, which has occasioned such far spread, and such deep seated ruin. The following testimony is introduced by Mr. Gordon, from the Mayor of Philadelphia:

"I do not think it necessary," says he, "to go into detail of a number of cases that occur to my remembrance, of the awful effects produced on individuals and families by the infatuation of lottery gaming I have known individuals of former good repute and standing in society, who, in bitter agony of feeling, have declared to me, that they were guilty of breach of trust, larceny, or other crimes, induced solely by gaming in lotteries, and vesting all their property, and that of others entrusted to them, in tickets. I will state to you a single case, some time, I think, in 1827. A gray-headed old man, of gentlemanly appearance and acquirements, was brought into the police office, charged with picking a pocket; his trunk was searched, and in it were found lottery tickets, plans, and schemes, for many past years. Being asked why so great a quantity of these were found in his possession, he answered, in substance, that they were the product of his lottery dealings for the last twelve or fifteen years, within which period he had actually squandered or expended for tickets as many thousand dollars, without at any time having been successful, except in trifling prizes; that he had recently spent his last dollar, his last ticket had come out a blank, and to prevent starvation, he had made the attempt for which he was brought up. This man, it was believed, had previously maintained an irreproachable character. Í think he died a convict, in Walnut street prison."

The case of Ackers, who committed suicide in Boston about a year since, is one which has excited very great interest, and has compelled the community to direct their attention to this fruitful source of crime and woe. We transfer the mournfully interesting account from the appendix of the address to our own pages. And he who can read it without detestation of that system of gambling, which lures so many in a similar career, is wanting in the common feelings of a man.

"On Saturday afternoon, January 26, at 3 o'clock, the body of Mr. David H. Ackers, a gentleman of about 35 years of age, who was employed as a

clerk in the store of Messrs. James Read, & Co. was found in the full basin at the Western Avenue leading from this city. It is understood that Mr. Ackers left his boarding house, in Milk street, at 8 o'clock, on the previous evening, under pretence of visiting his father in Brookline."

"The following notice was published in the Boston newspapers of February 13, 1833 :

:

The recent self-destruction of Mr. David H. Ackers, in this city, demands a more emphatic public notice than it has yet received. The feelings of the community were perhaps never more painfully, more indignantly excited, than they have been by this afflicting event; and the remembrance of it must not be permitted to pass away, without giving such a stern and wholesome impulse to public sentiment, as will effectually remove all fear of a similar occurrence, from a similar cause

"Mr. ACKERS, the misguided man, whose unhappy fate has been so generally deplored, had been, for ten years, the chief clerk in one of the first importing houses in the city; and to the hour of his death he enjoyed the unbounded confidence of his employers.

"His character for integrity and purity was unsullied.-Modest and amiable in his manners, temperate and domestic in his habits, he was endeared to all who knew him as one without a vice.

The ru

"When the distressing tidings were first spread abroad, that he had been found dead, not the most distant suspicion was entertained that he had ended-that he could have ended his quiet existence by his own act. mor that momentarily prevailed, that he had been robbed and murdered, was received, it is true, with horror, but with implicit confidence: nor was it until the fatal evidence of his rashness was found in his own hurried handwriting, that they who had known, and loved, and trusted him so long, were made to feel that he had cruelly deceived them; and that in the distraction of remorse he had atoned for one crime by committing another-the darkest crime of all.

"But no-he was murdered. The waves that froze over him as he plunged into their icy embrace, did not more surely destroy him, than did the man who first enticed him from the quiet paths of duty and peace, and then drove him to use his own dying words, "into the presence of his Maker, to receive the dreadful sentence for self-destruction and abused confidence."

"ACKERS was the victim of a fraternity, who, to the disgrace of our city, are permitted to carry on their unlawful labors in every street and alley, in bold defiance of the penalties they deserve. The sin of his death lies in fact at the door of the vender of lottery tickets. The outrageous extent to which he was duped will hardly be credited. In the short space of between seven and eight months, he embezzled the enormous sum of EIGHTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS, every cent of which was lost on lottery tickets..

"I have no desire to excite unmerited ill-will against any member of the community; it is not my wish to draw down undeserved odium upon any particular mode, whereby men gain their livelihood; but of a traffic which even permits such a monstrous fraud as I have mentioned, I shall speak in no measured terms-and I have mistaken the temper of my fellow-citizens, if they are not prepared to sustain me in saying, that it must be broken up. They who follow it are daily and hourly violating the law of the land, and must be watched and detected and punished.

"I have been permitted to copy the dying declaration of poor ACKERS, which was found in his desk after his death. It was probably written a few moments only before he committed the awful act to which he was hurried by the goadings of remorse. It is a simple picture of human woe. In its untutored language we see to what a depth of wretchedness one false step reduced a man, upon whose whole life before not a blot had rested.

"Read it-all ye who know how much of virtue and vice is the mere offspring of accident-the creation of circumstance.

"Our daily prayer is, not to be led into temptation; let us watch, as well as pray, and drive out temptation from us-from us and from ours, from