The mayor of New York was constantly besieged, and I presume the same is the case now, with letters from all parts of the country, complaining that these writers had tried and tried their luck, time after time, in this or that company, in vain, and asking him regarding the standing of the company, and so forth. Sometimes a victim would get his eyes open, conceive that he had possibly been cheated; or, having had some rupture by correspondence with the company, discovered that he was cheated, and beg the mayor to take the matter in hand. On two or three occasions, within my memory, the police have made raids upon such companies as they could get at; but usually matters were so secretly conducted, that it would cost the police too much effort to get at anything decided, especially without extra compensation for their labors; and the frauds complained of in each case would generally amount to not over ten dollars at most, and the complaints usually, perhaps always, came from obscure men, living at a great distance from New York, who could not afford to come and attend to the matter themselves. But the companies constantly had difficulty from one quarter of the land or another--enough so as to keep them all the while on the alert. Their offices were in obscure places. The members had business names which differed from their real ones. Ostensibly, they carried on a real estate business, for example, actually doing something in that line for respectability's sake, and conducting their lottery swindle in some secret room, having a box at the post office, and sending for their letters a clerk, who was instructed to deposit the letters in some secret place, from which one of the firm would secretly take them. Thus they managed. But one day "there came trouble into the camp" of "G. W. Huntington & Co." They had sold a ticket to a sturdy, and somewhat intelligent farmer in or near Portland or Bangor, Maine. (I am unable to find his address at this writing.) When the alleged drawing took place, the company sent on its usual report to the farmer, among the rest of their victims, saying, "You perceive that your ticket has unfortunately drawn a blank. We regret it," etc. [Illustration: THE BOGUS LOTTERY OFFICE.]