HC Deb 03 July 1879 vol 247 cc1293-4
MR. ANDERSON

asked the Postmaster General, If he will cause inquiry to be made among forty or fifty of the largest Post Offices in England and Scotland as to illegal lottery tickets being extensively distributed for sale by means of the Book Post, and therefore open to inspection; and, if it be so, whether he has not power to prevent his department being thus made an open medium for contravention of the Law, and if he will put lottery tickets among the articles forbidden by Rule 24?

LORD JOHN MANNERS

There is no doubt that a good many lottery tickets have been, and are, transmitted through the post in open wrappers, at the book rate of postage; but I am advised that the Postmaster General has no legal power to interfere with their transmission in that way.