good policy of suffering this species of insurance; for under this mask, the whole of the villainy, which the public so justly complained of, would be felt in its utmost degree. He mentioned the case of a woman (till then possessing and deserving an excellent character) in his own house, who had plundered him to the amount of 2004., which sum, it was found, she had squandered in insuring tickets, and in buying chances in the Lottery, instead of applying it, according to his order, to the discharge of several of his tradesmen's bills. The consequences were complete ruin to the woman; for in despair she committed suicide, in four days after the detection. For this, and several other reasons, exclusive of the impossibility of fairly regulating gambling, he should oppose the Bill.

Mr. Alderman Newnham remarked, that as a certain proof how much the present Bill would cherish and extend the nuisance, which it professed to remedy, the newspapers of that day contained numerous advertisements from fellows, who, in the contemplation of this Bill, were seeking for shops in every corner of the Metropolis; and thus every clerk, servant, and distressed adventurer, might continue to insure with all kinds of impunity, except in the last dreadful instance of irrecoverable ruin, if not personal destruction.

Sir Grey Cooper was convinced, that those who drew the Bill meant to correct the evil to which it alluded; yet he doubted whether the provisions would have that effect. It was certain that insurance was now prohibited. By this Bill it was again to be revived, and under this authority every evil growing from that abuse might be apprehended. Besides, what necessity could possibly exist for authorizing gambling?

Mr. Steele, remarking that the officekeeper was liable to be informed against by the party, added, that the only advantage of such a circumstance was to render the laws effectual. Might it not, therefore, prove advisable to wait the result of the Bill? and the rather, as the lower class of people could not venture their pittance, because the agreement must become void, unless the name of the person and number of the ticket were expressed in the agree

ment.

Mr. Bearcroft commended the Bill, as likely to bring into action very rigorous penalties against that species of offence which was most injurious, and do justice [VOL. XXVI.]

against small gamblers. The present laws were in fact a dead letter; they were not brought into inefficacy, and therefore some farther and more rigorous measures were necessary. The authority given for insuring whole tickets was not likely to be felt as an encouragement of gambling. The insurers of tickets to that amount were not the people whom it was the end of the Bill to prevent from gambling. It was certain, that let the Parliament inflict what rigours it might, people who gambled to that amount would find the means of doing it in spite of Bills. But the evil which they all complained of was, that lottery-office keepers drew in the lower classes of the people by a number of small chances, which, though trifling when separately considered, amounted to an immense sum, and at the same time had no efficacy in adding to the emolument of the public. This evil it was intended to crush, and this the Bill would effectuate. The public would gain by the insurance of whole tickets, for it would raise their price in the market; nor could the inferior ranks of life engage in this particular species of gaming.

Mr. Dempster trusted that no situation of distressed revenue would ever induce the nation to degrade itself by taking into its hand, and having a share in a gambling box. The learned gentleman's argument, that no rigours would be sufficient to prevent the insurance of whole tickets, if it proved any thing, proved too much, for it might with equal truth be applied to the small gambler as to the rich. The passion was the same in all ranks; and surely a general prohibition under the present penalties would be the most efficacious system. What, for instance, could prevent a person's insuring a share of a ticket, when the keeper of the office was in league with him? Or was it not possible, with impunity, to break and divide a ticket amongst a multitude of inconsiderate adventurers?

Mr. Fox said, that, possibly, as it was a clear and indisputable truth, that it was totally impracticable to crush gambling in toto, it might be expedient to establish a mode by which the public could reap an advantage from the general passion. But nothing was so clear as that this should be guarded by every possible means against the evils which sprang from small gambling. The persons who could afford to gamble so high as to give 15. for a ticket, which was only [2 R]

worth 10%. would be very few in comparison of the number who could give one guinea for that which was only worth half a guinea. This showed at one view the impolicy of the present clause; for it enabled people to enter into a species of gambling, undoubtedly worse than that of buying tickets, but which, as it tended to lessen the first risk, was a considerable invitation, and was a sort of gambling in which they could indulge themselves with a smaller stock. Grant this licence, and there was no saying where the evil might stop. The same ticket might be handed about through a hundred offices, for the purpose of insurance, and consequently reducing the gambling to a price sufficiently small to be within the reach of the lowest orders of the community.

Mr. Pitt said, that he was ready to acknowledge, that although a lottery was in a certain degree an advantage and resource for Government, yet it was always attended with one bad consequence, viz. that in some measure it promoted the spirit and practice of gaming. The present Bill went to secure and increase as much as possible this advantage to the state, and at the same time to repress the evils attendant upon all lotteries. By allowing the possessors of tickets to insure their property, they would naturally rise in value, and by that means Government would be considerably benefitted, and an inducement be held out to persons to keep offices for the sale of tickets, which they never could be expected to do, were they to have no emolument but the bare profit on the tickets: whereas, by restricting all insurances in the manner the Bill did to whole tickets, and those in the actual possession of the persons making the insurance, the low gambling, so much complained of, would be prevented. But yet, if on trial it should be found that the good effect that would necessarily result to the public, by allowing insurances in a limited way, should be attended with the bad consequence of encouraging indiscriminate and illegal insurance, then he confessed that no advantage to be derived from the one, could compensate for the evil resulting from the other; and in that case it would not admit of a doubt, but that every possible method of legal insurance ought to be abolished, to prevent its being a cloak for such as was not so.

The committee divided, when the numbers were, in favour of the clause standing part of the Bill, 115; Against it, 78.

Feb. 7. On the motion for the third reading of the Bill,

Mr. Fox remarked, that he felt himself obliged to withhold his approbation from the design to legalize the insurance on whole lottery tickets, which, he understood, had given great alarm without doors, and was likely to open a road to infinite abuse, by inciting and keeping alive that spirit of gambling among the lower orders of people, which it was their duty as much as possible to check. The more he considered the matter, the more he was convinced of the necessity of actually prohibiting all sorts of insurance upon tickets. He must, besides, observe, that passing such a bill as the present, just on the eve of the drawing of a lottery, had a very unseemly appearance, and gave rise to a good deal of suspicion. It ought, if such a bill were necessary, to have been brought in during the preceding session, when it could not have been liable to the surmises which naturally arose upon the singular period of time at which the present Bill had been brought forward. At present there was every reason to imagine that insuring would increase with a shameful rapidity if the Bill passed. The price of tickets had already been considerably affected by what had passed upon the subject; new lottery-offices were taken, and there was every symptom that the practice of insurance would increase inordinately. Under the apprehension of these approaching circumstances, he was resolved to take the sense of the House, and oppose the whole Bill, unless the clause was left out which related to the insurance of whole tickets.

Mr. Pitt answered, that it was the professed object of the Bill to put an end to that practice of insurance of all sorts, which, in defiance of various acts of parliament, was carried on with the most undeniable notoriety. Such kinds of insurance were productive of the most mischievous effect to the community, without affording any one advantage; on the contrary, the allowing the insurance on a whole ticket, would produce the solid advantage of making the public gainers by the lottery, to the amount of many thousand pounds, without producing any of the mischievous effects which would follow, were general and unrestrained insurances permitted. With regard to the argument, that the Bill ought to have been brought in last session, the fact was, that a bill, professing for its object the

suppression of the practice of lotteryticket insurance, had then passed that House, and was rejected by the Lords; and, therefore, another bill, of a similar nature, could not be introduced in the same session.

Mr. Alderman Townshend said, that the Bill introduced last session, for suppressing insurance on lottery numbers, had been shown to Government, and was, in fact, their bill, though conducted through that House by an hon. gentleman and himself. It was a severe, but a sound remedy for the evil. The Bill had passed the House with little debate or opposition, but it was rejected by the Lords. It was a strange government, he thought, which had not the power of making one branch of the Legislature support the other; but the fact was, that a great lawyer happened to be ill at the time the Bill was sent to the other House, and it was there thrown out, after a single flaming speech had been delivered against it. In his mind, Government would have acted wisely, had they brought in that bill again, instead of the present, which would not answer the end proposed; it would open a door to daily abuse, and the consequence would be, that insuring in the lottery would prevail to a greater degree than ever. He should vote for omitting the clause, because the idea of insuring whole tickets leading to no mischief was absurd; any six or seven could purchase a ticket, and insure it over and over; or a person willing to gamble by insuring, could borrow a ticket of any lottery-office keeper, show it to the insuring-office keeper, and tell him it was his property, and then insure it without the possibility of any person being able to come at the facts, or recover the penalty. Nor was it possible that the gain of any given number of thousand pounds to the public could prove an object, compared with the destruction of the morality of the people.

Mr. For proposed to defer reading the Bill a third time, till the day following; but this being rejected, the House divided on Mr. Fox's Motion: Yeas, 126; Noes,

97.

The Bill was then read a third time, and passed.

Debate in the Lords on the Lottery Regulation Bill.] Feb. 8. The Lottery Regulation Bill was read a first time. On the motion for the second reading,

The Earl of Derby contended, that its

introduction was extraordinary, and its principle new and alarming. It seemed to him, to have for its great object, the rise of lottery tickets, to benefit jobbers; and a licence to great gamblers, under the idea of destroying those of inferior note. He was surprised how ministers could so incautiously be led into this error, not to give it a worse appellation. If gambling in the lottery was illegal among the lower class, it surely was illegal among the higher order of people; and therefore should be totally, and not partially suppressed. The argument, that this Bill was for the benefit of the public, was absurd, as it raised the price of lottery tickets. For as all the tickets were disposed of by the original subscribers, there certainly could no profit arise to them by enhancing the value at this time. It was also very clear that the lower class of people would not be deterred by this Bill, from gambling, because it was an easy matter to divide tickets into small shares among clubs, each to bear his proportion, and to insure the whole. Had the public benefit or the interest of the lower class been the object, another kind of bill would have been framed. But it was pretty evident that the whole was a job to serve somebody.

Lord Sydney replied, that merely in his official capacity had he moved the second reading of the Bill. He was acquainted with no gamblers; he thanked God, that he never associated with that description of men, let their rank or situation in life be ever so high. The company he kept was of a different complexion. As to the Bill, it was, in his opinion, founded on the principle of suppressing that most pernicious vice which had ruined not only a number of the lower class, but those of high and elevated rank in society.

The Earl of Derby said, that he must intreat ministers to give some plausible colour of pretence for bringing in the Bill

at present it stood without one saving argument for its support. Detrimental it certainly was; for even already, under its visionary influence, had the spirit of gambling gone forth; and tickets had risen to near 197.

The Earl of Hopetoun contended, that the Bill was not indefensible; and that even if it should be proved that it did counte nance gambling, this spirit stood confined by it within the higher classes of life, because only the possessors of whole tickets could insure.

Viscount Stormont congratulated lord Sydney upon the virtuous circle of his acquaintance; which, however agreeable to that noble lord, must be very confined indeed, if every man was excluded from it who made a bet above 10. It was a narrowed limit in high life, because it exempted the noble lord from the society of some of the first, and most of the greatest characters in Europe. The whole Lottery Bill in its present form, reminded him of the story of the man who made two holes in his door; one for the great, and the other for the little cat,-which was exactly the case in respect to this intended act, for the lesser insurer would, no doubt, creep out of the hole that was left open for the great one. The Bill, in fact, was neither more nor less than a licence to gamblers. He had often, in those foreign countries which he had visited, been witness to the dismal effects of lotteries on the lower class of people. They encouraged vice in its worst shape, and drove distress to despair, that ended frequently in suicide.

The Lord Chancellor declared, that as far as he had been able to attend to the Bill, he thought it aimed at stopping the spirit of gambling among the lower class; but whether the clause which allowed insurance would, as had been stated, open a door for insuring shares, it was evident the Legislature meant no such thing; for, the name of the insurer, the insured, the number of the ticket, the lottery to which it belonged, and the premium of insurance, were all to be expressed on the policy; and besides, the persons having the liberty of making such insurances, were to be licensed, and give bond not to transgress. The Earl of Carlisle remarked, that the Bill was calculated to serve the present possessors of tickets. He thanked lord Sydney for the hint he had just thrown out respecting the circle of his acquaintance, and the abhorrence in which he held all kind of gamblers. He felt the rebuke, for he had been unfortunate enough to have had some acquaintance among men who betted more than 10. He bowed to the severity of the remark, and kissed the rod; but he begged leave to remind the noble lord that his situation at this critical moment as a minister, placed him in that of a gambler, playing for high stakes indeed, sums which perhaps a nation must pay; and broad as the noble lord's shoulders were, he should take care that the load did not bring him down.

The Bill was then read a second time.

Feb. 9. The House resolved itself into a committee on the Bill. On arriving at the clause relative to the insurance of whole tickets,

Viscount Stormont said, that nothing could prove more detrimental than the effects of gambling in every shape; and surely measures which tended to promote its spirit should, in whatever shape they came under discussion, meet with their lordships opposition. The Bill under consideration was in its avowed intention, and so far as their lordships had approved of its clause, framed for that purpose. After establishing various regulations of a salutary nature, it seemed all at once to deviate from its primary object, and by a strange proposition to set aside all the good which might have been expected from it: for, he could consider the clause under discussion in no other light than as one which would, instead of suppressing, give countenance and vigour to that spirit of gambling which was the bane of society. It had been alleged that insurance in some instances, and particularly in trade, was beneficial, as it proved a security to the merchant and the lesser dealer, and enabled him to support himself with vigour, under the severer blows of fortune. This he readily admitted; but was this species of insurance in any respect to be compared with a scheme, which was so undefined in its nature, and which even in theory seemed fraught with so many evils? Insurance in commerce tended to promote industry, and to secure its fruits; but insurance in a lottery, whilst it held out an encouragement to such speculation, was fitted to produce no such effect on society. Nor was the argument in favour of the plan of insurance arising from the consideration, that it would prove an incentive to subscribers in future to come forward, at all to be admitted on the present occasion. The fact was, that Government had never been at a loss to fill the subscriptions. The case had been uniformly the reverse. In other countries, and more particularly in France, the plan of the lottery was much less inviting than in this kingdom. It exhibited an immense possible advantage, but the chances of obtaining it, were almost as one to infinity. Still, however, there never had been any want of subscribers, and the profits arising from it, though no insurance was admitted, had been uniform and great. This, therefore,

evidently showed that insurance was no necessary spur to lottery enterprize. It had been, in fact, proscribed by the statutes of this country, and he was suspicious that it was not from the purest motives the present attempt was made to revive it. He therefore should object to the clause.

his

The Lord Chancellor contended, that the plain state of the question was perfectly reconcileable to the primary notions of justice. It was, simply, whether a person, who had embarked part of his fortune or property in a particular contingency, was to be admitted to the liberty of insuring it, if he so chose, against the hazards arising from such a situation. This was the real case, nor could he conceive that a toleration, or a legal authority should be given to one set of individuals, in certain instances of contingency, and refused to them in similar ones. The noble viscount had alleged, that in other countries, insurance was prohibited, and that in this kingdom it was contrary to law. He did not really know what was the legislation of France on this point, as he was no French lawyer; but he imagined, that if insurance in that country was not prohibited by statute, it would be as legal there in the instance of lotteries, as in any other. With respect to the code of laws of this kingdom, the prevention of insurance by statute, was rather a new than an old act of the Legislature. He went into the history of lotteries. They had obtained as far back as the time of Elizabeth. In the reign of William and Mary, they had been voted nuisances. In Queen Anne's reign, they had been revived. They had been used as instruments of state necessity, till the present period. In the 22d of the King, the transaction of insurance had been declared illegal; but previous to that period, he should very much doubt, whether in a process of recovery of insurance on lottery ticket, the person suing would not have obtained legal redress.

Lord Loughborough reprobated the clause, as beyond measure detrimental. No care had been taken to guard against the spirit of gambling in its most alarming extent, The learned lord had endeavoured to put a very plausible appearance upon the measure, by affecting a simple statement of the question; but he hoped their lordships would not be misled by so unfair and so unqualified a definition of that measure, which ought to be an object

The

of their most minute attention. learned lord had asserted, that it was a mere insurance of a species of property against a particular contingency: and as property was authorized by law to be insured in mercantile affairs, and such other circumstances, why ought it not to be legal in others? If one person, sending his property to the West Indies, was empowered to insure it against sea risk, why ought not another to have the same legal privilege, when embarking it in the lottery, which was an object established for the direct purpose of state advantage? But he would appeal to the learned lord whether the two instances were parallel? In the case of insurance of merchandize, every precaution was taken by the law, that the insurer should be paid in exact' proportion to the loss he had sustained. For this purpose, he was obliged, if required, to make affidavit with respect to it, or at least to exhibit proper proof of the damage he had incurred. But was there any provision made in the clause under consideration for that purport? By no means. On the contrary, gambling was to be legalized in its utmost extent. Every person holding a ticket might open a policy upon it, and after insuring it in one office, might insure it in another, and, in fact, derive all the advantages which accrue from a multiplied insurance. The case, however, was totally different with respect to mercantile insurance, for no person in such transactions could derive any advantage whatever, except such as arose from real loss. To illustrate this idea, he would suppose that A. possesses the ticket No. 100. A. wishes to insure it, and to make all he can of it. B. enters into a bargain with him, and the policy is formally concluded. But A. is not merely satisfied with this transaction: he wishes to derive an accumulated advantage; he, therefore, goes to all the lottery-offices in London, and insures it over and over again. Was there any thing to prevent his doing this? In the event of a blank coming up, was there any thing to preclude him from deriving all those advantages, which must arise from his various and multiplied insurance? There was nothing: and supposing even that he was not possessed of the real property of the ticket, what was to prevent his borrowing one? The lottery-office itself would lend him a ticket. A person at the door of the office, for a small premium, would afford him a temporary exhibition of one, which