woe to your corns! If you sought to cross the road, you had to beware of the flying postman, or the letter-bag express. As six o'clock drew near, every court, alley, and blind thoroughfare in the neighbourhood echoed to the incessant din of letter bells. Men, women, and children were hurrying to the chief office, while the fiery red battalion of postmen, as they neared the same point, were apparently pleased to baulk the diligence of the public, anxious to spare their coppers. The mother post-office for the United Kingdom and the colonies was then in Lombard-street, and folks thought it a model establishment. Such armies of clerks! such sacks of letters, and countless consignments of newspapers! How could those hardworked officials ever get through their work! The entrance, barring paint and stucco, remains exactly as it was fifty years ago. What crowds used to besiege it! what a strange confusion of news-boys! The struggling public with late letters-the bustling red-coats with their leather bags-completed a scene of anxious life and interest seldom exceeded. And now the letter-boxes are all closed; you weary your knuckles in vain against the sliding door in the wall. No response. Every hand within is fully occupied in letter-sorting for the mails; they must be freighted in less than half an hour. Yet, on payment of a shilling for each, letters were received till ten minutes to eight; and not unfrequently a post-chaise, with the horses in a positive lather, tore into the street just in time to forward some important despatch.

Hark! the horn, the horn! The mail guards are the soloists, and very pleasant music they discourse; not a few of them are first-rate performers. A long train of gaily got-up coaches, remarkable for their light weight, horsed by splendid-looking animals, impatient of the curb, and eager to commence their journey of ten miles (at least) per hour. Stout "gents" in heavy coats, buttoned

to the throat, ensconce themselves in ": "reserved seats." Commercial men contest the right of a seat with the guard or coachman. Some careful mother helps her pale, timid daughter up the steps; a fat old lady already occupies twothirds of the seat-what will be done? Bags of epistles innumerable stuff the boots; formidable bales of the daily journals are trampled small by the guard's heels. The clock will strike in less than five minutes; the clamour deepens, the hubbub seems increasing; but ere the last sixty seconds expire, a sharp winding of warning bugles begins. Coachee flourishes his whip-greys and chesnuts prepare for a run-the reins move, but very gently-there is a parting crack from the whipcord-and the brilliant cavalcade is gone. Exeunt omnes!

Lombard-street is a different place now-far more imposing, though still narrow and dark; the clean-swept roadway is paved with wood, cabs pass noiselessly-a capital thing, only take care you are not run over. Most of the banks and assurance offices have been converted into stone- two or three are rebuilding while I write. Beware how you pass under that prodigious line of scaffolding! The Post Office is in the old place, yet the "glory is departed," for it is only a branch office. Possibly quite as many letters are deposited in Lombardstreet now as in 1805, for Rowland Hill's penny charm has increased them from hundreds to thousands, and from thousands to millions; yet the ancient prestige is lost, for there can be no dignity about a crowd at a branch office. Indeed, the clearing house engrosses all the honour, and when we speak of the Post Office we refer to the noble building in St. Martin's-le-Grand. The New Zealander with whom we are so often threatened would think scorn to muse in a narrow court, but his thoughts would preserve a due solemnity under the grand portico raised by the talent of Smirke.

126

LOTTERIES.

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FOR the origin of these strange appeals to fortune we must back to the classical ages. Even among the Athenians, games involving a similar solution from chance were popular; but the Romans, during the more luxurious period of the empire, had a species of lottery te enliven their feasts, at which excitement in the most violent form was the coveted pleasure. The prizes distributed were in proportion to the wealth of the host; and as many of the patricians were immensely rich, they were able to confer estates, splendid vases and plate, or beautiful and accomplished slaves on their guests. This was carried to an incredible extent, for few modern capitalists possess a tithe of the wealth of some of the ancient Romans. Even during the republic there were instances of great extravagance amongst them, as in the case of Lucullus, Sulla, Julius Cæsar, and Marc Antony; but the tendency grew far more general and excessive under Augustus, Tiberius, and Nero. A state lottery was first attempted at Genoa, and the Pope soon followed the example of the Doges. It proved a popular mode of taxation, for the excitable Italians gladly deprived themselves of necessaries, that they might secure a chance for the golden prizes offered.

The earliest English lottery was drawn in 1569. The profits were appropriated to repair the coast line, then in a

very unsafe condition. The prizes where in money and silver plate. 400,000 lots were to be drawn; the process went on night and day for upwards of four months, and the shareholders were kept in a wild state of excitement, to the neglect of their ordinary business, and the consequent misery of their families. There were but three London offices, and the gambling propensities of the inhabitants were fomented and heightened by the form the drawing took. The second lottery, in 1612, was projected to benefit the new colony in Virginia, and there is a tradition that a poor tailor gained the principal prize-4,000 crowns. It took but little shrewdness to discover that lottery gambling and immorality would increase together. Poverty was augmented by idleness; and when once the working man began to trust himself and family to the drawing of a ticket, as his best hope for wealth or comfort, the surer ways of diligent industry were despised. No sooner had the Government sanctioned lotteries as useful in finance, than subjects began to speculate on their chance of obtaining a share in the golden distribution. During the suspense of a protracted drawing, strong drink was sought to hearten and embolden the miserable speculator. Wives and children soon caught the destructive fever, and pauperism rushed in like a flood. In March, 1620, some of the evils consequent on lotteries must have been noticed, and they were suspended by an Order in Council. In 1630, however, Charles I. revived the system; yet the immediate object was praiseworthy, for the lottery he sanctioned was to assist a project just mooted for conveying water to London. During the Civil War men were too much occupied with the awful events impending to tolerate such a waste of money and time; but Charles II., always reckless in his financial schemes, set up a lottery having for its object a distribution of rewards among those needy partizans who had so faithfully followed him during his

exile. Severe strictures as to the evils caused by such a wild saturnalia of idleness and profligacy were delivered in Parliament, and some restraints were imposed. The divines of the age inveighed against lotteries from the pulpit, but neither law nor divinity availed much to check the growing passion. The chance of large gains allured all classes to subscribe. For the benefit of those whose means were small, opportunities for petty gambling were found, and penny lotteries where constantly in operation. In a volume called "Some Account of the Grocers' Company," written by J. B. Heath, we are told, "There is not one entry in the accounts to show that the prizes were ever paid, and no doubt it was a difficult matter to obtain them. victims were induced to buy tickets by personal solicitation, for the system of advertising and placarding was then wholly unknown."

The

William III., no less than the Merry Monarch, stooped to cajole his people by lotteries, for in 1694 he raised £1,000,000 sterling by the sale of tickets, the prizes in which were granted at 4 per cent. for sixteen years. Such Government sanctions of a pernicious principle increased the mischief a hundredfold; the ignorant artizan, soldier, or servant, thought his gambling completely excused by State authority. The few broad-sheet authors of that day are earnest, and apparently hopeless, in their complaints. "What a run of lotteries we have had-tickets from a crown to a penny! With what haste our dupes put in their money! What golden promises are made!-Will one of a thousand hold good?" A pamphlet writer says, "People were tickled with the proposals of prodigious profits, when the proposers only meant it for themselves. Indeed, the people have been so damnably cheated, they have no need of dissuading, and their own troubles (one would think) are sufficient to convince them it is their interest to forbear" A curious tract was printed in 1719,