On the sixteenth day of drawing the just premium was not quite 20_s_., whereas the office-keepers charged L1 4_s_. 6_d_., which clearly shows the great disadvantage that every person laboured under who was imprudent enough to be concerned in the insurance of numbers.(148) (148) Public Ledger, Dec. 3, 1778. In every country where lotteries were in operation numbers were ruined at the close of each drawing, and of these not a few sought an oblivion of their folly ill self-murder--by the rope, the razor, or the river. A more than usual number of adventurers were said to have been ruined in the lottery of 1788, owing to the several prizes continuing long in the wheel (which gave occasion to much gambling), and also to the desperate state of certain branches of trade, caused by numerous and important bankruptcies. The suicides increased in proportion. Among them one person made herself remarkable by a thoughtful provision to prevent disappointment. A woman, who had scraped everything together to put into the lottery, and who found herself ruined at its close, fixed a rope to a beam of sufficient strength; but lest there should be any accidental failure in the beam or rope, she placed a large tub of water underneath, that she might drop into it; and near her also were two razors on a table ready to be used, if hanging or drowning should prove ineffectual. A writer of the time gives the following account of the excitement that prevailed during the drawing of the lottery:--'Indeed, whoever wishes to know what are the "blessings" of a lottery, should often visit Guildhall during the time of its drawing,--when he will see thousands of workmen, servants, clerks, apprentices, passing and repassing, with looks full of suspense and anxiety, and who are stealing at least from their master's time, if they have not many of them also robbed him of his property, in order to enable them to become adventurers. In the next place, at the end of the drawing, let our observer direct his steps to the shops of the pawnbrokers, and view, as he may, the stock, furniture, and clothes of many hundred poor families, servants, and others, who have been ruined by the lottery. If he wish for further satisfaction, let him attend at the next Old Bailey Sessions, and hear the death-warrant of many a luckless gambler in lotteries, who has been guilty of subsequent theft and forgery; or if he seek more proof, let him attend to the numerous and horrid scenes of self-murder, which are known to accompany the closing of the wheels of fortune each year:(149) and then let him determine on "the wisdom and policy" of lotteries in a commercial city.' (149) A case is mentioned of two servants who, having lost their all in lotteries, robbed their master; and in order to prevent being seized and hanged in public, murdered themselves in private.