CHAPTER VI.
Crowd at a lottery--Another State lottery, eighty-seven blanks to a prize--A ticket sold twice over--Extravagant prices paid for tickets--Praying for success--A lucky innkeeper--Lottery for Cox’s Museum--Adam’s Adelphi Lottery--Blue-coat boys and the lottery--Future arrangements for drawing.
In 1755 there was a State lottery (28 Geo. II. c. 15) for £1,000,000, tickets £10 each, the drawing of which commenced on October 6. At this lottery the crowd at the Bank, willing and eager to subscribe, was so great that the counters were broken by their eagerness to get at the books. In the next year, 1756, one was started for £500,000 (29 Geo. II. c. 7).
Then comes a lottery in 1757 (30 Geo. II. c. 5), called “The Guinea Lottery,” by which it was sought to raise £1,050,000 by the sale of tickets at one guinea each; half the amount to be applied to the service of the year, and the other half to be returned in prizes. But it was only partially successful, less than half the full number of tickets being sold. The prizes ranged from £10,000 to £10. Blanks received nothing; eighty-seven blanks to a prize. The prizes were paid in ready money; but, as one half of the subscription only was divided into prizes, these tickets were worth only half a guinea each, notwithstanding the avidity with which they were bought up. The drawing at the Guildhall commenced on September 5 and ended on October 15. Connected with this is a sad story, which I find in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for the year, p. 528. “November 5.--Mr. Keys, late clerk to Cotton & Co., who had absented himself since the 7th of October, the day the £10,000 was drawn in the lottery (supposed to be his property), was found in the streets raving mad, having been robbed of his pocket-book and ticket.”
There were State lotteries in 1758 (31 Geo. II. c. 22) for £500,000; in 1759 (32 Geo. II. c. 10) for £660,000; in 1760 (33 Geo. II. c. 7) for £240,000, in £3 tickets; in 1761 (1 Geo. III. c. 7) for £600,000, in £10 tickets, prizes from £10,000 to £20, blanks £6, about four blanks to a prize; in 1763 (3 Geo. III. c. 12) for £350,000 in £10 tickets, prizes from £10,000 to £20, blanks £5, about five blanks to a prize; in 1765 for £600,000, in £10 tickets, prizes as usual, £6 blanks, which were as four to one to the prizes; and another in 1766 (3 Geo. III. c. 39), precisely similar in amount, etc. There was an incident connected with this lottery, which was that a ticket was sold twice over. No. 2099 was purchased in Change Alley for Pagen Hale, Esq., of Hertfordshire, and the same number was divided into shares at a lottery office near Charing Cross, and some of the shares actually sold. The number purchased in the Alley was the real number, but that divided by the office-keeper was done in mistake, for which he had to pay a considerable sum.
In 1767 (7 Geo. III. c. 24) was another £600,000 lottery, with rather more stringent terms. In the interval between the purchase of a ticket and the drawing of the lottery, the speculators were in a state of intense excitement. On one occasion a fraudulent dealer managed to sell the same ticket to two persons, and it came up a five hundred pounds prize. One of the two went raving mad when he found that the real ticket was, after all, not held by him. Circumstances excited the public to such a degree that extravagant biddings were made for the few remaining shares in the lottery, until one hundred and twenty guineas were given for a ticket on the day before the drawing. Nay, a lady residing in Holborn had a lottery ticket presented to her by her husband, and, on the Sunday preceding the drawing, her success was _prayed for_ in the parish church in this form: “The prayers of this congregation are desired for the success of a person engaged in a new undertaking.”
The great prize of £20,000 fell to the lot of a tavern-keeper at Abingdon. We are told that he gave the broker who went from town to carry him the news, £100. All the bells in the town were set a-ringing. He behaved very generously with his new-found fortune. He called in his neighbours, and promised to assist this one with a capital sum, that with another; gave away plenty of liquor, and vowed to lend a poor cobbler money enough to buy leather to stock his stall so full that he should not be able to get into it to work; and, lastly, he promised to buy a new coach for the coachman who brought him down the ticket, and to give a set of as good horses as could be bought for money. Yet another anecdote of this lottery. During its progress Mr. Hughes, a stockbroker, had his pocket picked in Jonathan’s Coffee-house of fifty lottery tickets, the value of which--at the then current price--was £800. On the same evening three other stockbrokers had their pockets picked. A man was afterwards apprehended, on whose person was found thirty-five of the stolen tickets. The others were never recovered, and it was supposed they had been sent to Holland.
There was a State lottery in 1768 (8 Geo. III. c. 31) for £600,000, another in 1769 (9 Geo. III. c. 33) for £780,000, and one in 1771 (11 Geo. III. c. 47) for £650,000.
In 1773 were two private lotteries, Cox’s Museum and the Adelphi, the first being legalized by Act of Parliament (13 Geo. III. c. 41). James Cox was a jeweller in Shoe Lane, who delighted in making automata, which he hoped to dispose of in the East Indies; but he found that “on account of the great value and price thereof, and also on account of the present distress and scarcity of money in the _East Indies_, as well as in _Europe_, it cannot easily be disposed of in the common way of sale.” He therefore, as he had contracted large debts in completing the said Museum, petitioned Parliament to grant him facilities for a lottery by which he might dispose of his White Elephant; and his prayer was granted. This was the scheme of the lottery.
2 prizes of the value of £5000 = £10,000 2 ” ” 3000 = 6,000 12 ” ” 1500 = 18,000 18 ” ” 750 = 13,500 52 ” ” 450 = 23,400 100 ” ” 300 = 30,000 212 ” ” 150 = 31,800 2 ” ” 50 = 100 2 ” first drawn 100 = 200 2 ” last drawn 750 = 1,500 120,000 tickets of admission to the Museum at 10_s._ 6_d._ = 63,000 -------- £197,500
60,000 tickets marked A } } 120,000 at £1 11_s._ £126,000 60,000 ” ” B }
Balance in favour of the public 71,500 -------- £197,500
There were two automata of “a pair of bulls, with clocks, chimes, mechanism and pedestal eight feet high,” which have been immortalized by Sheridan in _The Rivals_--“And her one eye shall roll like the bull’s in Cox’s Museum.” He even included in his collection the larger forms of animal life, for he had “a Rhinoceros, with timepiece, musick and mechanism,” and “an Elephant and silver temple, with musick, mechanism, clock and pedestal;” in fact, there were two of both these. It is impossible to give the whole of the prizes in this curious Museum: two must serve as illustrations. “An automaton figure of a Chinese, that plays on the flute with musical chimes and mechanism, upon a commode of lapis and gold stone, which contains an Organ, and in front, artificial water works, with a water mill and bridge; and terminates with a spiral star; nine feet high.” “A swan, large as life, formed of silver, filled with mechanism, beating time with its beak to musical chimes, seated on artificial water, within reflecting mirrors; under the swan are water works, terminating at the top with a rising sun, upwards of three feet in diameter; the whole eighteen feet high.”
COX’S LOTTERY.
A SONG, TO THE TUNE OF “THE ROAST BEEF OF OLD ENGLAND.”
Whoe’er in this season of public distress, Would court Lady Fortune with certain success, To her shrine let him now with alacrity press, For tickets in Cox’s new lottery, Let him haste, and buy tickets of Cox.
The sly slippery Goddess here plays you no tricks, Nor smiles in your face, while your pocket she picks; A method is found out her wheel how to fix, If we buy into Cox’s new lottery, Then let us buy tickets from Cox.
In his matchless Museum, the boast of our land, For a guinea, a ticket we all may command; Then, if for our country we’d gloriously stand, O haste, and buy into the lottery, Let us haste, and buy tickets of Cox.
Whoe’er in this Lott’ry judiciously buys, Will give a most exquisite feast to his eyes, And is sure in that feast of a capital prize: Then haste, and buy into the Lott’ry, Let us haste and buy tickets of Cox.
But besides this luxurious regale to the sight, (Worth ten times the price, did we pay for delight) Their own obvious int’rest should all men excite To buy into Cox’s new Lott’ry, Then haste, and buy tickets from Cox.
You may get for your guinea, it plainly appears, Five thousand hard pounds, or an income for years, Or earrings worth more than a whole head and ears: Then haste, and buy into the Lott’ry, O haste, and buy tickets from Cox.
Here, birds made of jewels their plumage unfold; Here fly ruby lizards, here chase snakes of gold, And wonders too mighty in words to be told, Are prizes in Cox’s new Lott’ry, Then haste, and buy tickets from Cox.
If genius or splendor with pleasure you view, See here more than Athens or Rome ever knew, And feel for those Arts, which pour honour on you; O haste then, and buy in the Lott’ry, O haste, and buy tickets from Cox.
Thus Britain’s white sails shall be kept unfurl’d, And our commerce extend, as our thunders are hurl’d, Till the Empress of Science is Queen of the World, If we haste to buy into the Lott’ry, If we haste to buy tickets from Cox.
A fraud was attempted with regard to the drawing of this lottery. On June 1, 1775, a man was brought before the Lord Mayor, charged with attempting to bribe the two Blue-coat boys who drew the lottery tickets, to conceal one, bring it to him, and he would return it to them next day. His intention was to insure it in all the offices, with a view to defraud the office-keepers. The boys were honest, gave notice of the intended fraud, and pointed out the delinquent; who, however, was discharged, there being no law to punish the offence.
The preamble to the other Lottery Act of this year (13 Geo. III. c. 75) sets forth that “Whereas John, Robert, James, and William Adam ... have erected many great and expensive buildings, with commodious wharfs and warehouses, upon a piece of ground formerly called _Durham Yard_, now called _the Adelphi_, situate in the parish of _St. Martin in the Fields_, and adjoining to the river _Thames_; and have, by means of subterraneous streets, pointed out a new and effectual method to keep the access to the houses distinct from the traffick of the wharfs and warehouses, thereby connecting grandeur and magnificence with utility and commerce; and have also erected some great and expensive buildings in _Queen Anne Street_ and Mansfield Street in the Parish of St. Mary le bon, and are possessed of several shares of Stock in the Carron[18] Company, and of many valuable statues, pictures and antiquities,” etc. They found themselves in debt, and in want of money to complete their works; so they petitioned that they might sell such of their property as they wanted to, and that they might have a lottery, not to exceed £224,000, in tickets of £50 each. Their prayer was granted, and it was duly drawn: there were 110 prizes--the first drawn ticket receiving £5000, and the last drawn £25,000.
[18] A large iron foundry and engineering works at Larbert, co. Stirling, principally employed in founding ordnance. _Carronades_ were first made here.
It is singular that two similar cases of swindling should have been perpetrated in the same year; but, on December 5, 1775, a man appeared before the magistrates at Guildhall, charged, with another man not in custody, with defrauding a lottery office keeper of a large sum of money. “The latter said that, about a fortnight previously, the prisoner insured No. 21,481 six times over, for the following day of drawing; that the conversation he had with the prisoner at that time, and the seeming positiveness there appeared in the latter that the ticket would come up, caused him to inquire at other lottery offices, when he found the same number insured in the prisoner’s name at all the principal offices about the 'Change; that the ticket was drawn the first hour of drawing the subsequent day; that this, with his former suspicions, alarmed him, and he immediately went to Christ’s Hospital and saw the boy who drew the ticket; that he interrogated him whether he had clandestinely taken that number out of the wheel, or whether he had been solicited to do so; which the boy positively denied; and that, observing that he answered rather faintly, he importuned him to tell the truth, which, after some hesitation, produced an acknowledgment of the fact. The next witness was the Blue-coat boy. He said that, about three weeks ago, the person who is not in custody, and whom he had known before he went into the hospital, took him to a coffee-house, where they breakfasted together; that he wanted to know of the witness whether it was possible to get a ticket out of the wheel, to which the latter answered, No; that, being afterwards solicited by him for the same purpose, to secrete a ticket, he, at length, promised to do it; that he took two at one time out of the wheel, gave one to the person who called it over, and put the other in his pocket; that the person who induced him to do it, was then in the gallery, and nodded his head to witness to signify when was a proper time; that, after witness came out of the hall, he gave the ticket to the person who sat in the gallery, and who was then waiting for the witness in Guildhall Yard; that next time the witness drew the lottery, the person returned him the ticket, which the witness put into the wheel, and drew out the same day; that he did this three several times, and received from the person for whom he did it, several half-guineas; that he had heard the prisoner’s name mentioned by him, but never heard the latter acknowledge any connection between them in insurance, and had never before seen the prisoner.” The prisoner acknowledged that he had insured the ticket seventy-nine times for one day, but--he was discharged!
To prevent, for the future, a repetition of such frauds, the Lords of the Treasury (on December 12, 1775) issued an Order, from which the following is an extract: “IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED, for preventing the like wicked practices in future, that every boy, before he is suffered to put his hand into either wheel, be brought by the proclaimer to the managers on duty, for them to see that _the bosoms and sleeves of his coat be closely buttoned, his pockets sewed up, and his hands examined_; and that, during the time of his being on duty, _he shall keep his left hand in his girdle behind him, and his right hand open, with his fingers extended_: and the proclaimer is not to suffer him, at any time, to leave the wheel, without first being examined by the Manager nearest him.”
[Illustration]
It was also “requested of the Treasurer of Christ’s Hospital, not to make known who are the twelve boys nominated for drawing the lottery till the morning the drawing begins; which said boys are all to attend every day, and the two who are to go on duty at the wheels are to be taken promiscuously from amongst the whole number, by either of the secretaries, without observing any regular course or order; so that no boy shall know when it will be his turn to go to either wheel.”
Here we have a very good representation of the Blue-coat boy with his hand in his girdle behind his back, and also of the lottery wheel and boxes. They were in those days marked A and B; later on they had the King’s cypher crowned.[19]
[19] The earliest lottery ticket I have seen, is in the collection of Miss Sophia Banks, sister of the famous Sir Joseph (Brit. Mus. 1890, _e_). It represents an eighth share in the lottery of 1775.