When a man or woman gets lottery-mad,
nothing is too absurd for them to do in getting 'numbers.'
The negroes of the city are great policy-players. In every district
where they live you will find dingy little lottery offices, patronized
mostly by them. Some of them make as much as forty or fifty dollars a
week. A negro must play his policy even if bread is lacking at home.
Now and then they make a lucky 'gig,' and win a few dollars. Some are
born with a policy luck, I do believe. One old darkey woman, a kind,
motherly sort of a body, who used to attend to the linen of the house
where I resided, has had a wonderful streak of luck in policy. Out of
four or five years playing she has obtained money enough to set up a
pretty cottage in Harlem, and furnish it well. She says she dreams her
numbers! The sale of lottery dream-books is really immense. One firm on
Ann street sell several thousand a month of these books, wherein every
possible dream is described, and the proper 'policy' attached to it.'
The poverty, the evil, the utter and abominable waste that results from
these lotteries, cannot be realized, save by those who have
investigated the subject. Hard working, sober men, good citizens,
respectable and worthy in every other way, are bound down to this mean
gambling, which always keeps them poor, which continually keeps the
wolf at their doors. And all for what? That a set of rascals may wear
fine linen, and walk Broadway with lofty airs.
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