The financial atmosphere was getting unwholesome, Government had to step in, and an Act was passed which duly appeared in the _London Gazette_, June 28/July 1, 1712, which enacted 'That every Person who, after the 24 June 1712, shall erect, set up, or keep any Office or Place for making Insurance on Marriages, Births, Christnings, or Service, or any other Office or Place, under the Denomination of Sales of Gloves, of Fans, of Cards, of Numbers, of the Queen's Picture, for the improving of small sums of Mony,[150] or the like Offices or Places under pretence of improving small sums of Money, shall Forfeit for every such Offence the sum of 500_l._, to be recovered with full Costs of Suit, and to be divided as aforesaid.' This had the desired effect, and both in the _British Mercury_, June 27/30, 1712, and the _Post Boy_, Aug. 21/23, 1712, we hear of prosecutions of illicit lotteries--and they soon ceased. [Footnote 150: Here is a sample of one of these traps to catch gulls: 'At Nixon's Coffee House, at Fetter Lane End in Fleet St, is open'd an Office call'd the Golden Office, where by putting in Monys, not exceeding 5 Guineas, may receive Cent per Cent in three Weeks time. Proposals may be had at the Place aforesaid.'--_Postboy_, April 26/29, 1712.] Of course, morally speaking, the Government had no right to complain, for they had begun the system--by legalising a lottery for £1,500,000 in 1709--from which time until 1824 no year passed without Parliament sanctioning a Lottery Bill. It is not worth while going into the schemes of the various lotteries in Queen Anne's reign, but it may be interesting to note the constitution of the one which inaugurated an indefensible system of immoral finance, which lasted over a century. There were 150,000 tickets at £10 each, making £1,500,000, the principal of which was to be sunk, and 9 per cent. to be allowed on it for 32 years. Three thousand seven hundred and fifty tickets were prizes from £1000 to £5 per annum; the rest were blanks--a proportion of thirty-nine to one prize, but, as a consolation, each blank was entitled to fourteen shillings per annum during the thirty-two years. People rushed after the tickets, and they were taken up at once. '21 Jan. 1710.--Yesterday books were opened at Mercer's Chappel for receiving subscriptions for the lottery, and, 'tis said, above a Million is already subscribed; so that, 'tis believed, 'twill be full by Monday 7 night.'[151] [Footnote 151: Luttrell.] [Illustration: A Lottery.] And the same authority tells us[152] that 'Mr. Thomas Barnaby, who lately belonged to the 6 clerk's office, has got the £1000 per ann. ticket in the lottery.' [Footnote 152: _Ibid._ August 15, 1710.]