LOTTERIES.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1504, 11 December 1878, Page 3

LOTTERIES.

To the Editor of the Glohc. Sib, —It is well known that somo so-called clergymen like lotteries, bazaars, and art unions. That they are illegal, instead of being a reason why they should discountenance them seemß to be a reason why they should have a favor for them —" Stolen waters are sweet." They like them because they can raise money by them which the faith of some could not produce if left to itself. They like them because they are a means of getting power over the ignorant people, who like all superstitious people, have a passion for trying their luck rather than for steadily working for success. But there seems occasionally to be another reason -which has just come out in the case of a Neapolitan clergyman, who in one sweep, by his luck gathered his pocket the large sum of £84,000 by a lottery, and after he got the money, and fixed some of it in the bank at Naples, it was discovered that the thing was ajfraud between the clergyman and some conspirators connected with the lottery office. The thieves who had got up the fraud fell out about the division of the spoil. Some one of the disappointed conspirators gave information to the authorities, and the police were immediately set agoing to arrest the culprits. They caught £IB,OCD, which had been safely lodged in one of the banks by the clergyman as a sort of comfortable nest egg for himself as he preached and illustrated the Church's " virtue of poverty ;" but the gentleman himself no sooner heard that he was " wanted " by the police than he bolted to Switzerland. I do not know what per centage the clergy have in the lotteries, bazaars, &c, which so frequently occur here among ourselves. We cannot tell what they make by them ; but the one which happened in Naples, and which was watched by the Government and afterwards certified to by the Government inspectors, was proved to be a fraud. The Neapolitan people who are adeptß in lotteries, &c, and are quite eager to look after their own interests, were deceived. How much more likely are the plain and simple and inexperienced people of Christchurch to be deceived by art unions, lotteries, and bazaars. Aktimas.