The Sheriffs of Londonpresented at the bar, a petition from the Lord Mayor, Alderman, and Commons of the City of London, setting forth, "That the petitioners have, with great pain, long witnessed the ill effects of lotteries, in destroying industrious habits, in estranging men from their families, and in corrupting their morals; and that, in these days of general distress, when the profits of trade are reduced beyond all former example, when so many individuals of the labouring classes are thrown out of work, and the poor-rates have augmented to a degree almost insupportable, it appears to the petitioners to be peculiarly impolitic to encourage gambling among the poor; that, although the institution of saving banks maybe of considerable benefit, and promises to be be of much greater, in giving an incentive to honest industry, and habits of frugality and sobriety, the petitioners are at a loss to account for the conduct of his majesty's ministers, who, on the one 1133 hand, patronise such institutions, and bring in bills for their regulation, and on the other counteract their good effect by occasioning gaming houses to be set up all over the kingdom, and provoking the people to a spirit of gambling, by every possible artifice; and that even legal speculations in the lottery appear to the petitioners to be the direct cause of much vice and misery, but that there is besides much illegal dealing in insurances, which the petitioners are convinced no laws can ever entirely suppress; and that the present very severe laws against such illegal insurances are extremely liable to abuse, and in fact, are notoriously abused; that they give rise to infinite fraud and perjury, and can only be enforced by the instrumentality of the most profligate informers; and praying the House not to sanction, by their votes, any state lottery in future, under any circumstance whatever."
§ Ordered to lie upon the table.