he
drawing of a lottery, the consumption of such articles was very
materially diminished. It is moreover equally true, that a very small
proportion of the tax actually paid, through the purchase of lottery
tickets, is available to the state: by far the greater part being
absorbed in the expenses, profits, &c., of managers and venders."

INSURING NUMBERS, OR POLICY DEALING.

As the system of insuring numbers is at present practised to a fearful
extent in this city, and as its votaries are mostly the ignorant and
unthinking portion of the community, we proceed to give a plain
matter-of-fact investigation of the chances.

There being on the day of drawing a certain number of tickets in the
wheel, out of which a particular number of them are to be drawn, it
follows that there are so many chances to one against a given number
being drawn as the number which are to be drawn are contained in the
entire number of tickets in the wheel. To illustrate this practically,
suppose you would insure the payment of $100 upon the event of a certain
number being drawn from the lottery wheel to-day; suppose it is a 78
number lottery, and that 12 ballots are to be drawn; the chance then is
evidently 78/12, or 6.5 to 1 that you lose: accordingly, in order to
make the chances equal, you must pay 100/6.5, or $15.38, for insurance:
if therefore the insurer should ask $32, there would be about $16 fraud:
in other words, you would have to contend against about 100 per cent.
The only inducement for the insurer to pursue this vile practice, in
defiance of constitutions and laws, is a liberal per centage. This
varies from 30 to 70, and even 125 per cent. Under circumstances like
these, when the chances of gain are obviously so remote, it would seem
incredible that any one endowed with even ordinary sagacity could be so
deluded--so desperate--as to adventure; though, sad to relate, hundreds
and hundreds in this city daily spend their little all in effecting
insurance on numbers, and that, too, at the sacrifice of the common
necessaries of life.

Another system of insurance, which we will proceed to analyze, is
effected by what is termed a station number. The adventurer selects a
number, and declares that it will come out the first or second drawn, or
in some other place, for which he pays six cents, and if the number is
drawn in the order indicated, he is to receive $2.50. To illustrate
this, suppose you select a certain number, which you declar