MR. VERNERsaid, he would beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he is aware that lottery tickets of an illegal character have been extensively circulated amongst the Clerks in the Public Departments, for general distribution, accompanied by gratuitous tickets as an inducement for the sale of the others?
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, he had, like other gentlemen, sometime ago received envelopes which appeared to be filled with papers or billets which more or less resembled what the hon. Member described them, and he need hardly say that they had at once found their way into the waste-paper basket. He had no reason to suppose that they had been sent to public officers in particular, and he was not aware it was anything that could be called a circulation. He imagined it was the act of some unauthorized persons, and he had certainly not thought it his duty to take any notice of it.
MR. VERNERsaid, he would now beg to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, if his attention has been drawn to the distribution of lottery tickets to and by the Irish Constabulary, and if the employment of the Constabulary in this occupation has received the sanction of their superior officers and of the Irish Government; and if, after the opinion lately expressed by the Attorney General as to the illegality 1269 of the practice, he is prepared to censure and prohibit it.
§ SIR ROBERT PEELsaid, in reply, that such a proceeding would not have been sanctioned by the Government. He was not aware that any tickets had been distributed by the Irish constabulary. Tickets, he believed, had been forwarded to them, but he was not aware that they had distributed them. After the opinion expressed the other night by the Attorney General, and, indeed, without it, the constabulary would have been liable to censure if they had distributed tickets of this kind.