[162] It so remained until 1878 for lack of funds, when Tietgen, a wealthy banker of Copenhagen, undertook the cost, and it was finally completed in 1894. The handsome copper-sheathed dome is a conspicuous object in Copenhagen, especially when the city is approached from the sea. To bring money into the depleted treasury, Struensee established a royal Danish lottery, and it became a most profitable institution, not only to the court but to the Government. Its establishment was regarded by many as state encouragement of gambling, which would not fail to bring ruin upon thousands; but protest was unavailing, for a mania for gambling seized the citizens of Copenhagen and the people in the provinces, and nothing was talked of but the lottery, to the hindrance of regular and honest occupation. Struensee's defence to his critics was that he did not establish gambling, which already existed in Denmark; he merely sought to regulate it, and turn the craze to the benefit of the state. In this, as in many other things, he was imitating Catherine the Great, who raised money in the same way. Struensee closed his programme of court reform by what was in effect an indirect attack upon the army, though it was really aimed at the nobility. He abolished by royal decree the two squadrons of Household Cavalry or King's Bodyguard, who, composed of picked handsome men, were the flower of the Danish army. Struensee considered them to be useless, and justified their abolition on the ground of economy; but it was said that a personal grievance had something to do with it. The officers of the Household Cavalry were all men of noble birth, and had the right of coming to court when they liked. Many of them held ornamental posts which Struensee had swept away. Naturally the officers did not view these reforms with favour, and they revenged themselves by making slighting remarks about the mixed company which now formed the court circle, and ridiculing the more prominent members of it, including the favourite himself. Struensee stopped this annoyance by abolishing the Household Cavalry by a stroke of his pen, and gave directions that the officers, who could not at once be attached to other cavalry regiments, were to be placed on half-pay; but the non-commissioned officers and privates received no compensation beyond the option of joining the Foot Guards, whom they looked down upon and despised.