CHAPTER XXII.

Description of lottery-office keepers--Insuring numbers in the lottery--Servants bitten by the mania--_Morocco men_--Many prosecutions--Cost to the country--Several law cases--Story of Mr. Bartholomew.

What class of men these lottery-office keepers were, we learn in a little book[29] believed to have been published about 1770.

[29] “The Frauds of London,” by Richard King. London, 1770? 12mo.

“For several years past these lottery-office keepers have had an ample share in imposing on the town, and cheating the country; by vending of books, handkerchiefs, and other things of little value, with shares of tickets, said to be impending, or then drawing, in the State lottery, with a note of hand, importing that if No. 45 should come a prize of £20,000, the bearer of that ticket would be entitled to £50, and so for other prizes in proportion; by this means thousands were taken in with their eyes open (such an itch has the world for gambling), and paid thrice the value for the commodity they purchased (allured by the hopes of a prize in the lottery) than its real worth.

“On the drawing of the lottery, the lower part of the creation, who were concerned in the above schemes for enriching themselves, would quit their labour and industry, and repair to the Guildhall, to be present at the drawing, in expectation of every next number called being theirs, when twenty thousand to one of their getting a prize of £10. Some few have been so lucky as to get the £20,000 and £10,000, but I never knew that they received the sum stipulated, in the promissory note given for that purpose. On the contrary, I have seen the office-keeper’s windows and shops demolished by a deluded and justly enraged mob, who have been ruined by the purchase of tickets, shares, chances, and insurances thereon.

“The keepers had a custom, a day or two before the finishing the drawing, to shut up their shops and decamp, for fear of their being brought to account for their cheats and roguery, practised on the ignorant and unthinking. The countryman, hearing that he had a prize in the lottery, hastened up to town, at no small expense, to receive the money due thereon; when, to his great sorrow, there was no keeper to be found; but, as an alleviation of his grief, he saw hundreds deceived as well as himself.

“To such an height were these lottery offices carried (as they called themselves) that you might purchase shares and chances at sixpence apiece, one of which is worth observing. An advertisement in the _Morning Chronicle_, intimating that shares and chances were to be disposed of at Fuller’s Eating House, in Wych Street, and tickets insured; that whoever bought six pennyworth of beef, would be presented with a ticket, and a note of hand to receive the sums inserted therein, if the number of the ticket was drawn a prize of £20,000, etc.; and told you that this was the most rational of all schemes hitherto projected, as the purchaser, at least, would have, for his sixpence, three pennyworth of meat, besides a chance in the lottery.

“Notwithstanding the law has taken every precaution to guard against the itinerant cheat, who practises as lottery-office keeper, yet ways are, and always will be, found to evade it. Therefore let me dissuade the countryman, and others, from adventuring at this losing game, as it is at best, there being better than two to one against you in the State lottery, and more than fifty to one of your getting anything from such as I have already described.”

The custom of insuring numbers in the lottery has already been noticed, but only _en passant_. It was, in reality, pure betting. In return for, say, a shilling, a pound would be promised if a certain specified number turned up. Of course, these insurances were illegal, but they were so profitable to the office-keepers, that no penalties could keep them down. Many attempts had been made by magistrates and police officers to enter houses and places kept for the purpose of carrying on illegal insurances, and apprehending the offenders; but the parties concerned opposed their attempts in every possible way, and employed a desperate set of ruffians to defend them, who, with every kind of offensive weapon, bade defiance to the execution of the warrants issued for their apprehension. They also secured the rooms within the house where this illicit business was transacted, with strong oak doors and iron bars and bolts, so that the police officers could only obtain admission by using force.

Such a state of things, of course, could not be tolerated in any civilized community, and an Act was passed (33 Geo. III. c. 62), in 1793, empowering magistrates to allow any person authorized by the Commissioners of Stamps, by day or night (but, if by night, then in the presence of a constable), to break open the doors and apprehend the offenders; and all persons who should obstruct the officers in the execution of their duty, were liable to be seized and prosecuted, and subject, on conviction, to be fined, imprisoned, and publicly whipped. By a subsequent Act, this power was extended to any person or persons authorized by a magistrate without restriction; and these provisions were also introduced into the Act of 1802 (42 Geo. III. c. 119).

We have seen how, by the Act of 1793, no person, except the clerks of licensed lottery-office keepers, were allowed to be in the Guildhall during the drawing of the lottery; but, though this undoubtedly checked this gambling, it was far from putting a stop to it. Mr. Colquhoun, a well-known magistrate, declared that the keepers of these unlicensed insurance offices were “as a class, in general, of very depraved or distressed characters,” and the class they preyed upon were principally male and female domestic servants; indeed, it was computed, in 1800, that, on an average, each servant in the metropolis spent, annually, as much as twenty-five shillings in this vile practice of lottery insurance; the sum total so expended in a year, by the wage earning-classes, being estimated at half a million sterling. They were, especially the footmen, undoubtedly led away by the example of their superiors in rank, and, from their idle and dissipated habits, they entered keenly into the lottery. So long as they won, all went well; but the chances were so great against them that this never happened for long, and then, impelled by that fearful gambling fever, which we now see in those who bet on horse-racing, money must be got, by any means, fair or foul, and pilfering and peculation were the necessary results.

The insurance offices in the metropolis are said to have exceeded four hundred in number. These had jackals, touts who provided prey for them, in the shape of _Morocco men_, so called from the red Morocco pocket-books they used to carry with them, and in which their notes were made. These men haunted the public-houses and coffee-shops; nay, they pushed themselves into every village, and into every house in the village, to collect premiums from all sorts and conditions of men. These people would take their books to their employers by night, and receive the money from them to pay those who were fortunate enough to obtain prizes.

Mr. Francis,[30] writing of these Morocco men, says, “They began life as pigeons; they closed it as rooks. They had lost their own fortunes in their youth; they ruined those of others in their age. Generally educated, and of bland manners, a mixture of the gentleman and the debauchee, they easily penetrated into the society they sought to destroy. They were seen in the deepest alleys of St. Giles’s, and were met in the fairest scenes of England. In the old hall of the country gentleman, in the mansion of the city merchant, in the butlery of the rural squire, in the homestead of the farmer, among the reapers as they worked on the hillside, with the peasant as he rested from his daily toil, addressing all with specious promises, and telling lies like truth, was the Morocco man found, treading alike the finest and the foulest scenes of society. They whispered temptation to the innocent; they hinted at fraud to the novice. They lured the youthful; they excited the aged; and no place was so pure and no spot so degraded, but, for love of 7½ per cent., did the Morocco man mark it with his pestilential presence. No valley was so lonely but what it found some victim, no hill so remote but what it offered some chance; and so enticing were their manners, that their presence was sought, and their appearance welcomed, with all the eagerness of avarice.

[30] “Chronicles and Characters of the Stock Exchange,” by John Francis. London, 1855.

“And little were they who dealt with these persons aware of the characters with whom they trafficked. Of bland behaviour, but gross habits, the nature of their influence on the unpolluted minds with which they had to deal, may be judged from the fact that some of the Morocco men ended their days at Tyburn; that transportation was the doom of others, and the pillory the frequent punishment of many. To such men as these were the morals of the people exposed through the lottery.”

The Act was occasionally put in force, and once, in particular, a Mr. Wood (according to the Report of the Commissioners in 1808) “was seized with a sudden fit of severity, and, in the course of one term, he caused to be arrested (for the crime of insuring lottery tickets), by writs of _capias_, perhaps from 300 to 400 persons; who, with the exception of a very few, perhaps about twelve, were persons of the very lowest class of life, many of them married women, washerwomen, charwomen, and persons of that description; so that Government necessarily had to pay to the Solicitor of Stamps heavy costs for having instituted so great a number of unproductive suits, and the Treasury was greatly displeased. The poor were put into prison, and, after remaining there, some a month, some two months, and some three months, and so on.... When the Commissioners (of Stamps) came to know what sort of wretched beings they had in prison, their humanity urged them to set them at liberty by degrees.”

Mr. Baker, a magistrate, gave evidence before the Commission, and stated that the annual loss to the public, by the lottery, was £1,275,000, which loss was made up by the cost of tickets, the cost of illegal insurances, and the profits of the agents, contractors, office-keepers, etc. He also said that “no revenue has been obtained to the State at half the expense, in point of pecuniary sacrifice to the public, independent of the excessive injury to the morals of the people, as lotteries, in the manner they are now constituted. They have been a productive harvest to the most idle, the most profligate, and the most abandoned and depraved members of the community, many of whom have through this medium acquired princely fortunes within the last thirty years. These successes have stimulated others to follow the evil example; great capitals have been employed in the trade of illegal insurances, and long practice has enabled these mischievous agents to systematize their designs in so perfect a manner as to elude detection. Their profits on the money received during each lottery are estimated at 33⅓ per cent., clear of all expenses. From 7½ to 10 per cent. is generally allowed to Morocco men, who go about soliciting persons to insure. A very considerable portion of women who could write, and who know a little of figures, are employed in this nefarious trade; and, whenever any of them are convicted and imprisoned, there is generally a stipulation with their principal that they shall be allowed two guineas per week during the term of their imprisonment.”

[Illustration]

At all events, if their profits were great, they seem, according to this illustration (date, October 5, 1780), to behave somewhat generously to their clients, by paying quickly, and giving free refreshment.

They were occasionally caught, but not always punished, as shown by the following case. On March 1, 1773, a case came on to be tried before Lord Mansfield, at the Guildhall, wherein the Lord Mayor was plaintiff, and Messrs. Barnes and Golightly were defendants, in order to determine the legality of insuring lottery tickets; but, on account of an error in the declaration, the plaintiff was nonsuited.

On June 26, 1775, a case was tried in the Court of Common Pleas, Guildhall, between a gentleman, plaintiff, and a lottery-office keeper, who was the defendant. The cause of the action was as follows: The gentleman, passing by the lottery office, observed a woman and boy crying, on which he asked the reason of their tears; they informed him that they had insured a number in the lottery on the over-night, and, upon inquiry at another office, found it to have been drawn five days before, and, therefore, wanted their money returned. The gentleman, taking their part, was assaulted and beaten by the office-keeper, for which the jury gave a verdict for the gentleman, with five pounds damages.

In July, 1778, Lord Mansfield, at the Guildhall, tried a case in which a merchant was plaintiff, and a lottery-office keeper defendant. The action was brought for suffering a young man, the plaintiff’s apprentice, to insure with the defendant during the drawing of the last lottery, contrary to the statute, whereby the youth lost a considerable sum, the property of the merchant. The jury, without going out of court, gave a verdict for the plaintiff, thereby subjecting the defendant to pay £500 penalty, and to three months’ imprisonment.

About the beginning of January, 1785, several lottery-office keepers were convicted, before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, in penalties of £50 each, for insuring numbers, contrary to law; and, in Trinity Term, the following cause was tried at Westminster, before Lord Loughborough.

A lottery-office keeper near Charing Cross was plaintiff, and the Sheriff of Middlesex defendant. The action was to recover one thousand five hundred and sixty-six pounds, levied by the Sheriff, about a year past, on the plaintiff’s goods, by virtue of three writs of _fieri facias_, issued from the Court of King’s Bench. It seems that the above plaintiff was convicted in three penalties of five hundred pounds each, for insuring lottery tickets; but, previous to the trials coming on, for some indulgence, he had, by himself or agents, consented not to bring any writ of error, and an order of _nisi prius_ was drawn up, and served upon his attorney; notwithstanding which, three writs of error were sued out. The Court of Queen’s Bench being then moved, made an order that the executions should be levied according to the original rule of Court; the Sheriff made the levy, and, the money being paid and impounded in his hands, the above action was brought to get the same returned. The novelty of the action caused much laughter among the counsel; and, after a few minutes’ hearing, his lordship ordered the plaintiff to be nonsuited.

I cannot leave the subject of insurance without mentioning an instance of infatuation, recorded by Nelson in his “History of Islington.”

“Some years ago, this house and premises (_White Conduit House_) were kept by Mr. Christopher Bartholomew, a person who inherited a good fortune from his parents, and who brought much trade to the place, by the taste he displayed in laying out the gardens and walks, and the excellent manner in which he conducted the business of the house.

“This person, with every prospect of success and eminence in life, fell a victim to an unconquerable itch for gambling in the lottery. At one time the tea-gardens and premises, as also the Angel Inn at Islington, were his freeholds; he rented land to the amount of £2000 a year in the neighbourhood of Islington and Holloway; and was remarkable for having the greatest quantity of haystacks of any grower in the neighbourhood of London. At that time he is believed to have been worth £50,000, kept his carriage and servants in livery; and, upon one occasion, having been unusually successful at insuring in the lottery, gave a public breakfast at his tea-gardens, '_to commemorate the Smiles of Fortune_,’ as it was expressed upon the tickets of admission to this _fête champêtre_.

“He, at times, had some very fortunate hits in the lottery, and which, perhaps, tended to increase the mania which hurried him to his ruin. He has been known to spend upwards of 2000 guineas in a day for insurance, to raise which, stack after stack of his immense crops of hay have been cut down and hurried to market, as the readiest way to obtain the supplies necessary for these extraordinary outgoings. Having at last been obliged to part with his house from accumulated difficulties and embarrassments, he passed the last thirteen years of his life in great poverty, subsisting by the charity of those who knew his better days, and the emolument he received as a juryman of the Sheriff’s Court for the County.

“Still, his propensity to be engaged in this ruinous pursuit never forsook him, and meeting, one day in the year 1807, with an old acquaintance, he related to him a strong presentiment he entertained, that, if he could purchase a particular number in the ensuing lottery (which he was not then in a position to accomplish), it would prove successful. His friend, after remonstrating with him on the impropriety of persevering in a practice that had already been attended with such evil consequences, was at last persuaded to go halves with him in a sixteenth part of the favourite number, which, being procured, was most fortunately drawn a prize of £20,000. With the money arising from this extraordinary turn of fortune, he was prevailed upon by his friends to purchase an annuity of £60 _per annum_; yet, fatally addicted to the pernicious habit of insurance, he disposed of it, and lost it all. He has been known frequently to apply to those persons who had been served by him in his prosperity, for an old coat, or some other article of cast-off apparel; and, not many days before he died, he solicited a few shillings to buy him necessaries.

“A gentleman in his manners, with a mind rather superior to the generality of men, he, at one time, possessed the esteem of all who knew him; but was reduced from a state of affluence and respectability to wretchedness and want, by following that baneful practice, which, in spite of all laws made to the contrary, will ever exist whilst the Government continues to resort to the unwise expedient of inducing the individual to pay £20 for the liberty of gambling for £10. Let his fate be a warning to all ranks, particularly to those engaged in trade, not to engage in a pursuit which will, ultimately, be their ruin; and, when tempted to insure, let them remember the fate of Bartholomew. He died in a two-pair-of-stairs room, in Angel Court, Windmill Street, Haymarket, in March, 1809, aged 68.”