embly to resort to the most operative penal enactments, for
the entire suppression of a system which exists, and which can exist
only to disgrace the character of the State, and to injure both the
morals and the interests of the people. The memorialists are persuaded
that a commanding majority of the citizens of every political party
entertain sentiments of decided hostility to all lotteries. In praying,
therefore, for legislative interposition, they feel that they are not
in advance of public opinion, that they are not urging the General
Assembly to anticipate public opinion, but only to imbody it; to
accelerate its salutary impulses, and to augment its healthful vigour.
The constitutional power of the legislature to interfere in the premises
being undisputed, the memorialists beg leave to submit, for
consideration, a few only of the many reasons which have forced upon
their minds the conclusion--that Rhode Island should lose no time and
spare no effort in extirpating the lottery system:--a system which has
already worked extensive evil within her borders; which is repugnant to
a cultivated moral sense; and which has been branded, both as illegal
and immoral, by some of the most enlightened governments upon earth. In
this connection, it should be stated, that England, and, it is believed,
France likewise, have abandoned the lottery system. Some of the most
populous and influential States in this Confederacy have abandoned it.
Massachusetts has abandoned it; Pennsylvania has abandoned it; New York
has abandoned it. Nay more, so hostile were the people of the latter
State to the lottery system, that in revising its Constitution a few
years since, they adopted a provision which prohibits the Legislature
from ever making a lottery grant. These examples are adduced to show the
progress of an enlightened public sentiment upon this subject, and to
exhibit the grateful spectacle of governments, differently constituted,
exercising their powers for the best interests of the people. The evils
which the lottery system creates, and the evils which it exasperates,
are so various and complicated, that the undersigned memorialists
cannot attempt an enumeration. They are so revolting as to furnish no
motive for rhetorical exaggeration. A few only of these evils the
undersigned memorialists will now proceed to mention.

1. Lotteries are liable to many of the strongest objections which can be
alleged against gambling. They have thus far e