From the "Salem Gazette," Dec. 25, 1812:

_The Historical Dictionary,_

By EZRA SAMPSON, author of the Beauties of the Bible, is one
of the most useful little works of this nature which we have
seen. It contains _much in a small compass._ Its subjects are
Natural and Civil History, Geography, Zoology, Botany and
Mineralogy, arranged in alphabetical order, and explained in
such a neat and intelligible manner, as to render it worthy
of being (according to its design) a _Companion for Youth._
We select the following article as a specimen of the work.


LOTTERY,

A kind of public game at hazard, in order to raise money for
the service of the state. A lottery consists of several
numbers of blanks and prizes, which are drawn out of wheels,
one of which contains the numbers of the tickets, and the
other the corresponding blanks and prizes. Besides the
consideration that this, as well as all other kinds of
gambling for money, tends to corrupt the public morals, it is
also to be considered that the purchasers of the tickets are
never permitted to play the game on fair and equal ground.
The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a perfectly
fair lottery; or one in which the whole gain compensated the
whole loss; because the undertaker could make nothing by it.
In lotteries the tickets are really not worth the price which
is paid by the original purchasers, and yet they often sell