Throughout lower London, and the shady portions of its suburbs, the window of almost every public-house and beer-shop was spotted with some notice of these “Specs.” There were dozens of them. There were the “Deptford Spec,” and the “Lambeth Spec,” and the “Great Northern Spec,” and the “Derby Spec;” but they all meant one and the same thing—a lottery, conducted on principles more or less honest, the prize to be awarded according to the performances of certain racehorses. All on a sudden, however, the officers of the law swooped down on the gambling band, and carried them, bag and baggage, before a magistrate to answer for their delinquency. At the examination of the first batch at Bow-street, as well as at their trial, much curious information was elicited. It appeared that the originator of the scheme lived at Deptford, and that he had pursued it for so long as six or seven years. The drawings were on Saturday nights, when the great majority of the working-people had received their wages, and when, it having been noised abroad that these lotteries were going on, they were likely to attend and to expend their money in the purchase of such of the tickets as had not been sold already. If all the tickets were not sold, a portion of each prize was deducted, and the holders of prizes were paid in proportion to the number of tickets that were sold; and, as it was impossible to know what number of tickets had actually been sold, it could not be determined whether the distribution had or had not been carried out with fairness, or how much had been deducted to pay for expenses, and to afford a profit to the promoters of the concern. Several cabloads of tickets, result-sheets, &c. were seized at the residences of the managers of the “spec.”