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SPECIAL PUBLTC EVILS.

[Part VI.

include all who were driven to insolvency from this cause, withinthis time, and within the limits of this district. For many, whoselosses in this way were the principal occasion of their misfor-tunes, suppressed the disclosure of them in their petitions, andthe fact was only elicited by examinations at the bar. Many,likewise, either from the indulgence of creditors, or successfuldexterity in eluding the law, were never driven into the InsolventCourt. Judging from what we know of the county of Philadel-phia, how great must be the number of insolvencies, and conse-quently how great the domestic suffering, caused by the lotterysystem in the United States.

2. The system has led to very numerous cases of embezzle-ment, fraud, purloining, breach of trust, &c. It is in the regularcourse of events, that lottery speculations should finally plungethe speculator into deep and complicated guilt. He becomespoor by successive losses, his poverty leads him to petty villa-nies, he gradually proceeds from one impropriety to another, tillat last his feelings become blunted, and his reputation is tarnished.Low dissipation and idle phantasms of golden showers, from beinglong indulged, have so impaired his faculties and weakened hissense of character, as to destroy his ability for any useful pur-suit. He looks around him for assistance, but the avenues torelief are closed ; he is in debt beyond the hope of extrication,his standing in society is ruined, and his native energy is gone.Thus prepared for some reckless effort to repair his fortune,where can he seek for aid, but from the principles which he hasimbibed ; what counsellors can he listen to, but his desperationand his necessities ? I have before me an extensive collection ofactual cases, illustrative of the numerous frauds, embezzlements,and purloinings to which the lottery system in this country hasgiven birth. They consist of a melancholy detail of persons, ofboth sexes, and of almost every variety of employment and con-dition, ruined, first in estate and prospects, and finally in character,by the illusions and seductions of this destructive system of legal-ized gaming. Many of them are affecting, and even tragical ,in the impression produced by their perusal.

3. Intemperance and suicide are extensively the consequencesof this system. Intemperance, in the first instance, and eventu-