Prize Packages by H. A. K.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 30, 1872

Prize Packages.

By H. A. K.

“ONLY fifty cents a package! Every one warranted to contain a piece of gold or silver coin. If it does not, you shall have the package free. Try your luck!”

Such is the language that falls on the ear of every railway traveler, as the tempting package is thrown into the lap. This double appeal to the palate and the love of money is often too strong for people to resist. By familiarizing the public mind with the principle of gambling, it lays a snare for many unwary feet. The growing fashion of conducting business on the principle of lotteries is an evil to be deprecated—a nuisance that ought to be abated. The lottery trade is prohibited by law, even when carried on in the secluded haunts of vice. But what are the prize packages of traveling news agents but sugar-coated lottery-tickets? And they are permitted to prosecute their gambling business in the most public manner, and with perfect impunity. Unhindered by the civil law, and uninfluenced by the gospel, they are continually peddling their pills of moral poison along the thoroughfares of our great country. Is there no power in the religious and secular press that can be brought to bear against this crying evil? Railroad companies ought to have sufficient intelligence to see the demoralizing character of this practice and moral courage enough to break it up.

—H. A. K.