There are many incidents, which, recorded in contemporary annals, have been either overlooked or disregarded as insignificant. There is, however, nothing insignificant connected with so important a topic, and nothing ought to be overlooked on an evil which has eaten to the very heart of society, and which may again be used by some unscrupulous minister for some unscrupulous purpose. The declaration of Sir Samuel Romilly, that “whenever the House voted a lottery, they voted that the deserving should become depraved,” with the additional assertion, that “the crimes committed would be chiefly bought off by the paltry gain to the state coffers,” was entirely disregarded. Let it be remembered that a chancellor declared “he could not see that lotteries led to gambling,”—that though the Corporation of London presented an earnest petition for their abolition, as injurious to commerce and injurious to individuals,—that though Lord Mansfield said the state exhibited the temptation and then punished for the crime to which it tempted,—that though, on one occasion, out of twenty-two convicts who left the country, eighteen commenced their career with insuring,—that though forged notes were encouraged from the carelessness with which lottery-office keepers received and passed them,—that though it was iterated and reiterated that no circumstances conduced so much to make bad wives and bad husbands, bad children and bad servants,—that though men threw themselves into the river from the infatuation of their wives,—though the plate of respectable families was pledged to assist the mania,—that though the poor-rates were increased, and the consumption of excisable articles diminished, during the drawing,—that though the gambling and lottery transactions of one individual only were productive of from ten to fifteen suicides annually,—that though half a million sterling yearly came from metropolitan servants,—that though four hundred fraudulent lottery-offices were in London alone,—that though no revenue was ever collected at so great an expense to the people,—that though families pawned every thing they had, sold the duplicates, and were reduced to poverty,—that though women forgot the sanctities of their sex,—that though the parishes were crowded with applicants who had reduced themselves by insurances,—that though perjury was common, and small annuitants squandered their resources,—that although all these pictures were drawn, and statements made, so publicly and so prominently that they could not fail to reach even the obtuse ears of a dominant ministry,—yet it was not until 1826 that the evil was abolished. A similar pressure may recall the evil. It is of no importance to argue that lotteries are forbidden, and that the morals and the minds of the people are more regarded. Lotteries have been repeatedly forbidden, but they have been invariably renewed when the coffers of the state were low; and the morals of the people are a