To this day the lottery flourishes in most of the chief cities in
Europe, and lottery tickets are vended in many shops as well as in
regular offices. The Cologne Cathedral, as is well known, was only
recently finished by the aid of a lottery. Lotteries are upheld, we
believe, by the Roman Catholic Church in Europe, and many of the priests
aid in disposing of the tickets,--at least so we have been told.

The sum of the whole matter as regards this country is that a good work
was undoubtedly accomplished through the agency of the lottery in the
early days of our national history. By its aid schools, colleges, and
charities were founded, bridges, roads, and canals were constructed. In
our time public opinion is, of course, as it ought to be, against
gambling in any form; but although our ways are almost always thought to
be more honest, it is a question, after all, whether we are really more
upright than our fathers, who sometimes engaged in transactions that are
condemned by modern society, but who, on the other hand, knew nothing of
"defaulted" railroad bonds, of "wild cat" oil companies, or of "watered"
mining stocks. It is easy enough to

"Compound for sins [we] are inclined to,
By damning those [we] have no mind to."

[Illustration]

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University Press: John Wilson & Son, Cambridge.