"MISSING-WORD COMPETITIONS."
THERE is a certain fairy-tale—some version of which, we fancy, is to be found in the folk-lore of nearly every people—that has always seemed to us, until to-day, to require some explanation. The story generally runs thus. The King of a vast territory is possessed of a peerlessly beautiful daughter, and no male heir to his kingdom,—a condition which has always been very common among the Kings of Fairy-land. Desirous of providing himself with a worthy son-in-law and successor, he issues a proclamation to the effect that he will give his daughter and the reversion of his kingdom to any man who succeeds, either in solving some obscure riddle, or in guessing the second and unknown name of the Princess, or in calculating the number of hairs that he, the King, her father, has in his beard. Suitors present themselves in plenty, but none of them succeed until a humble but worthy youth— aided, of course, by a fairy godmother, or some other benevolent spirit—gives the right answer and claims the promised reward. Now, we cannot help remarking, first, that if, in the first instance, the King were in the least anxious for the future welfare of his people and the happiness of his daughter, he could not have hit upon a more idiotic way of securing them ; and, secondly, that he is generally so far from pleased at receiving the correct solution that he most unfairly insists upon some further and more difficult test. Either we must imagine that fairy-kings were fools them- selves, or that the average specimen of eligible young men in those days was singularly devoid of wit, and could only enter into the simplest form of competition. But let us suppose that the story is incompletely told, that every competitor had to pay down a large sum before he entered for these " maiden stakes," and that the Royal Treasury annexed the entrance- money,—then the history is at once made clear, and we under- stand at the same time the source of the King's revenues, and his reluctance to marry his daughter. There is nothing new under the sun, for it is the practice of a modern weekly paper that has suggested to us the correct solution of this mythical problem. Obviously the simple expedient for raising the circulation of Pearson's Weekly is the same as that which was employed by pre-historic Kings for raising the wind, and "missing-word competitions" may derive their origin from an ancient and legendary custom. We fear, however, that its antiquity is the sole claim that the practice has upon our honourable consideration. In whatever other light we con- sider it, we cannot but note its resemblance to another which the law denominates as a "lottery," and has absolutely for- bidden as harmful to the best interests of the State.
Whether or not a " missing-word competition" can be fairly called a lottery, we are not called upon to decide. There is a rumour abroad to the effect that the Government is so exercised by the question as to contemplate the bringing in of a new Act, in order to cope with a practice which, in the opinion of many people, is just as culpable as that which the existing Lottery Act provides against. In the meantime, we will describe, for the benefit of our readers, this simple pro- cess, and let them judge for themselves. We have mentioned the name of one journal which provides this form of specula- tion for its readers, but it is not the only one. An examination of a bookstall has shown us that there are at least four, and probably more, which open their columns to the same compe- tition, and a good many others which indulge in similar inventions. However, the journal we have spoken of seems to
be the pioneer in this movement, and we cannot do better than illustrate our description from its pages. In each copy of the paper there is a paragraph which wants one word to com- plete it—the omission being an apparently obvious one—and a coupon, which is printed with blank spaces for the missing word, and the name and address of the person who offers to supply it. Anybody who buys the paper can cut out that• coupon and send it, duly filled up, and accompanied by a shilling, to the offices of the paper. Those who have guessed correctly, divide the whole number of shillings among them. For example, in one issue of the paper there was a paragraph upon Brazil nuts, in which the following defective passage occurred :—" Once they have been taken out of the pod, it is an utter impossibility to fit them in again, Nature has packed them so —." How did Nature pack them ? Well ? closely ?- tightly wonderfully P There seem to be plenty of words which fit equally well ; but the real word was " admirably.' The number of answers, and shillings, received were 132,892 of these, 871 were correct, and divided amongst them £6,894, yielding £7 18s. 3d. to each lucky guesser. Those who guessed rightly the week before this issue were more lucky still, for- the number of solutions passed 160,000, and the correct ones numbered only 43. Now, there is not the slightest cause to suspect the good faith of the newspapers them- selves. This particular journal employs, as it tells us, a chartered accountant to guard the correct answer for it, and ensure the fair division of the spoils—when it comes to receiving 160,000 letters in a week, it might well employ a dozen accountants—and we see no reason for- doubting the accuracy of its statement. The benefit to the- paper itself is fairly obvious ; the additional circulation of 100,000 copies adds very considerably to its stature, and must leave it fairly indifferent to all other considerations. But what is the benefit to the readers of the paper ? Taking into- account the number of newspapers which advertise this form of speculation and the figures which they publish as to its result, we may fairly suppose that in London alone there are- some 300,000 people who are capable of spending a shilling a week in this mild form of gambling,—rather a melancholy picture, not only of our idleness, but also of our hunger for any kind of speculation. Winning or losing is purely a matter of chance, except, of course, in the case of a man who exhausts a dictionary and £20 or so in sending up- every possible word, and it is not likely that the ordinary public of these journals is willing to invest either so much capital or so much learning in its pursuit of fortune.. No one could honestly contend that the competition involved any skill, or needed anything from the competitor but a tendency to gamble, and sufficient money to gamble with. In what way, then, does it differ from the ordinary lottery We- are quite willing to be convinced that there is a difference, but really it is far to seek. The fact is, that the old lottery has turned up again so often and under so many disguises, that one naturally suspects its presence in all these enter- prises. It has taken the form of biblical competitions, in which competitors were invited to guess the number of times- a certain letter appeared in the Gospel of St. Luke, and we were then bravely assured by its promoters that they were offering an encouragement to the public to read their Bible, and were actuated by no other or more sordid motive. It has put on the garb of charity, invaded Church bazaars, and actually deceived bishops, by the plausibility of its seeming, into giving it their aid and protection. Again and again, it has been ignominiously exposed and suppressed, only to spring up again with an entirely new face and quite unabashed. And if it has been able to impose upon bishops, surely it might easily prevail over the innocence of news- paper proprietors. No doubt, like the inventor of the biblical competition, they are only anxious to aid in the propagation of truth ; but it is to be feared that the greater circulation of their journal does not necessarily imply a greater number of readers. In this weak and sinful world of ours, there are plenty of people who are capable of buying several copies of even " the best of weeklies "—whichever that one may be— and of gambling with the coupons, without reading anything but the rules of the competition into which they enter. The fact is a deplorable one, which editors who are only anxious to spread the truth will be loth to believe; but it is a fact for all that.
There is one point about the "missing-word competition "
in Pearson's Weekly which, to a certain extent, prepossesses us in its favour. All the money subscribed is frankly divided among the winning competitors : there is no pretence of helping a deserving charity. Another journal which offers an exactly similar competition reserves some 4 per cent. of its takings for charity. It keeps a fund for " Starving Little Ones," and a real clergyman to administer the competition and the money that accrues from it. "Thanks to a generous public and our prize competitions," it says, " the great scheme whereby we hope to be able to provide one million breakfasts for the starving little ones of our great cities is advancing rapidly." The scheme does not in the least reconcile us to the prize competition ; in fact, we dislike this conjunction of charity and gambling so much that we will refrain from com- menting on it altogether. But even when it is free from this hypocritical guise, the last innovation of the newspapers seems s ill a most undesirable one. The whole principle of it is immoral, and in its working it cannot fail to have the most demoralising effect upon the innumerable idlers and weaklings who support it. To revert to the days of fairies, it is not difficult to see how demoralising was the ancient system by which a king filled his coffers and married his daughter. The young men of the time never appear in its history as doing an honest day's work; they were always loafing about in search of a marriageable princess and an easy riddle. History will repeat itself again, and our Board-school scholars will give up more serious employments in favour of prize competitions and researches after missing words. The temp- tation, as of all gambling, is great. There are few boys who cannot command a shilling, or who can resist the chance of enriching themselves so easily ; and they are likely to lose a great many shillings, perhaps not always their own to lose, before they realise that the English language has wider limits than they suppose. As a matter of fact, it only requires the formation of a syndicate with a little capital to make fairly certain of some of these prizes ; but combination and sufficient capital is out of the reach of the foolish people who send in the bulk of the shillings at the rate of one or two guesses at a time.
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