England -- Social life and customs; Gambling -- Great Britain
“Then come the ingenious sett of lottery merchants, viz. Lottery
magazine proprietors—Lottery tailors—Lottery stay makers—Lottery
glovers—Lottery hat makers—Lottery tea merchants—Lottery snuff and
tobacco merchants—Lottery handkerchiefs—Lottery bakers—Lottery
barbers (where a man, for being shaved, and paying threepence, may
stand a chance of getting ten pounds)—Lottery shoe blacks—Lottery
eating houses; one in Wych Street, Temple-bar, where, if you call for
six penny worth of roast, or boiled beef, you receive a note of hand,
with a number, which, should it turn out fortunate, may entitle the
eater of the beef to sixty guineas—Lottery oyster stalls, by which the
fortunate may get five guineas for three penny worth of oysters. And,
to complete this curious catalogue, an old woman, who keeps a sausage
stall in one of the little alleys leading to Smithfield, wrote up,
in chalk, _Lottery sausages_, or, five shillings to be gained for a
farthing relish.”
In 1782 an Act was passed, whereby lottery office keepers were to pay a
licence of £50, under a penalty of £100 if they did not do so.
Sir Ashton Lever disposed of his Museum by lottery in 1758 by Act of
Parliament, and another Act was procured to dispose of, by lottery,
a large diamond, the property of the deceased Lord Pigot, valued at
£30,000. This lottery was drawn on Jan. 2, 1801, and the winner of
the prize was a young man, name unknown. It was, afterwards, sold at
Christie’s on May 10, 1802, for 9500 guineas. It was again sold, and is
said to have passed into the possession of Messrs Rundell and Bridge,
the Court jewellers, who are reported to have sold it to an Egyptian
Pasha for £30,000.
But, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, a system of private
lotteries, called “little goes” had sprung up, and they are thus
described in the _Times_ of 22nd July 1795:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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