p. 61 | Church Fairs and Lotteries

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 8, 1871

Church Fairs and Lotteries.

By John Norton Loughborough

A LOTTERY is clearly defined in the penal Statutes of California as follows: “A lottery is any scheme for the disposal or distribution of property by chance among persons who have paid, or promised to pay any valuable consideration for the chance of obtaining such property, or a portion of it, or any share or interest in such property upon any agreement, understanding, or expectation, that it is to be distributed or disposed of by lot or chance, whether called a lottery, raffle, or gift enterprise, or by whatever name the same may be known.”

The time was when it was considered a heinous offense to engage in lottery schemes. Strict State statutes condemned lotteries, and the utmost caution was requisite to draw the numbers in a lottery scheme without detection by government officials. It is one of the evident tokens of the spirit of evil in the world that the mania for these things has so increased, and the public mind so pandered to these things, that the last legislature of California could legally sanction the sale of the tickets of a gift enterprise amounting to one million of dollars, and the prizes distributed amounting to half that sum. It is true that some church “advocates” spoke against this lottery scheme. Still multitudes of men in high standing in the church bought more than one $5.00 ticket in hopes that some one of their $5.00 might suddenly become $100,000 or less.

One of the judges of this city, claimed that the action of the legislature in granting license to the mercantile library association to carry on its $1,000,000 gift enterprise had virtually abolished the law of California upon the subject of lotteries. On the back of this, rise up four or five different gift schemes of no small magnitude, and the mania spreads like wild fire in this and other States.

Judge Stanley comes to the rescue of right, and discards this slip-shod manner of abolishing laws without any express statement to that effect. He says that “law cannot be repealed while the organic law remains unchanged.” On this basis that the original law against lotteries still remains in California, he is waging quite severe warfare on venders of lottery tickets.

As very severe criticisms have been passed upon the course of the Mercantile Library Association for projecting their lottery scheme, the president, Mr. R. B. Swain, took occasion to state in his report that “the principle of such lotteries has been recognized as right in most of the church fairs and festivals, in this and other States.”

We appeal to all candid persons to say if there is not force in Mr. Swain’s statement. What difference is there between paying twenty-five cents for a chance for a $3.00 ring in a guess cake, and paying $5.00 for a ticket in the hope that it will suddenly become $50.00 or more? For my part I cannot see but that the charge of Mr. Swain is just. While he would claim, perhaps, that the lottery was right because the church sanctioned the principle of it, we claim that the lottery is wrong and the church fair wrong that fosters the gaming spirit.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.