Romance of a Lottery Ticket.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 38, 23 February 1884, Page 6

Romance of a Lottery Ticket.

A cukious story about a prize ticket in the Manila lottery was brought to light last month in a Shanghai Court. Some time ago a poor old Chinese woman found a ticket lying on the ground, on which was some foreign and Chinese writing. Not being able to read it, she showed it to two learned schoolmasters of her acquaintance, who discovered it to be a Manila lottery ticket. They subsequently read with delight, which may easily be imagined, the announcement that the ticket had taken a prize of 3,000d015. They cashed the ticket at a shop in Honan road and divided the money between them. The original purchaser of the ticket, who is a gilt-button mandarin, then discovered the serious loss he had sustained, instituted inquiries at the shop where he had bought the ticket, and found out who were the persons who had cashed it. In the mean time he had been turned out of a firm of which he was a member, his partners having a superstitious feeling arising out of their j notions of " Joss Pidgin,'' that a man who was unlucky enough to lose a ticket worth 3,000d015. was not one to share their fortunes. The finder of the ticket, her two advisers who divided the spoil with her, and he of the gilt button all appeared at the Mixed Court, and the case was fully gone into by Chen and Mr Carles. The defendants admitted having cashed the ticket, and the woman that out of her share she had bought a coffin for lOOdols. and had given 300dols. to her son to buy a wife with. The Court took time to consider its action.