Lotteries and the Louisville Public Library Scheme
By J. H. W.
THE Advance, Chicago, a Congregational paper, contains the following:— “The sudden death of ex-Governor Bramlette, who has furnished a figure-head sort of respectability to the Public Library Lottery in Louisville, lets in a little light upon that great rascality. The lion’s share of receipts from previous drawings have gone into the pockets of the managers, and what little money was put into the library went in under a cunning provision of the charter that permitted the stockholders to close it up and divide the assets whenever they chose. More than that, there has been systematic lying about the number of tickets already sold for the next drawing,—which has been so many times postponed, and the money received from those that have been sold,—over a million dollars,—instead of being in bank, as represented, has been loaned out to speculators in pork! It is safe to conclude that a man who gets up a lottery is a knave. His patrons are certainly fools.” The Kentucky Lottery was a semi-charitable educational affair, by which it was proposed to give to the State University, we think, a valuable library. Those who bought the tickets, of course, cared for their own gains, and not at all for the State or the library. And now it comes to view that the managers were of the same mind! And who could not have told them so? Who ever knew a lottery that was conducted by honest and honorable men of good motives? This greed of gain is undermining the morality of the age. But the Advance should bear in mind that the lottery is almost a “peculiar institution” of the churches of the age. Games of chance, and devices whereby to obtain “something for nothing,” are the special means of raising money to support worship in almost every denomination. If all who get up lotteries are knaves, and all their patrons are fools, there is a large percentage of the membership of American churches in these questionable classes. “Ye are the light of the world,” is turned to a mockery by them. But the day of account is fast coming, and they who have served self and Satan in the “livery of Heaven” will be put to shame. May the warning call soon bring all the honest from such associations. Rev. 18: 1–5. J. H. W.