LOTTERY. (Hansard, 25 April 1817)

The Hon. Mr. Lyttelton

professed his intention to abstain from any detailed observations on the principle of the provisions of this measure, which he judged entirely unnecessary, considering the ample discussion which the subject had lately received. He could not let the opportunity slip, however, without entering into some general animadversion, and proposing certain clauses to qualify a measure, the principle of which, though obnoxious, he had no hopes of being able to explode. He would be very brief. In his late remarks he had alluded to the emoluments of those connected with the Irish lottery, who had lost their situations by its abolition. He wished to do justice to those individuals. He held in his hand a letter from a Mr. Thomson, who belonged to the Irish lottery-office, stating his former emoluments, his length of service, and his present remuneration. He stated, that he had been engaged on this establishment for 26 years, that before its abolition it brought him upwards of 400l., and that his emoluments now did not exceed 240l. per annum. The hon. gentleman allowed that he fully deserved this remuneration, and thought it but justice to Mr. Thomson, after the allusion made to pensions of the extinct Irish lottery establishments on a former occasion, to state this opinion. The hon. gentleman was likewise free to confess, that he might have proceeded on erroneous information, or at least on an exaggerated statement, in speaking of the dinners given to the commissioners on the days of drawing, and the good spirits into which they were put by the entertainment. He formerly mentioned this circumstance on the authority of a letter, the account of which he believed was not strictly correct. He now came to the resolutions before the House, and would propose, when the bill should be brought in, that the number of tickets should be reduced. When he suggested the reduction of the number of lottery tickets, he believed he was doing no serious injury to the revenue derived from the lottery, as the whole were never sold. He had, indeed, heard, that four-fifths was 1316 the utmost that were generally disposed of. The excessive multiplication of tickets therefore answered no other purpose than the disgraceful multiplication of those misrepresentations and fabrications called lottery puffs. It was in the discretion of the chancellor of the exchequer to reduce the number of tickets as the act merely said that a number not exceeding 60,000 might be contracted for. By reducing the number of tickets much puffing, shabby fiction, and vulgar delusion, would be prevented. He would also propose a clause, that the boys at Christ's Hospital should not be employed in drawing the tickets. This clause was now rendered less necessary, from the laudable resolution of the governors of this charity, by which they prohibited any of the boys from being employed in this office in future. He should not be surprised, however, to hear that the lottery-office people dressed out boys in masquerade to personate the boys of Christ-church. This would surprise him the less, when he recollected that all the newspaper editors, with one honourable exception, for the sake of the considerable profits that the lottery advertisements afforded them, admitted such gross and contemptible fabrications into their columns. The honourable exception to which he alluded was the editor of The Sheffield Iris, who refused to disgrace his paper by such trash; and who deserved the more credit, as he not only stood alone in this laudable resolution, but surrendered a considerable source of profit.