THE SCOTCH LOTTERY SCHEME.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR:']
SIR,—We are deeply indebted to you for giving voice to that condemnation of the Lottery which most Scotchmen feel, but which some have been too slow, and others too weak-kneed, to take their stand upon. A week before Christmas, when this pernicious proposal was first heard of, Principal Rainy, of Edin- burgh, wrote to all the Scotch papers that such a scheme, no matter what the temptation to it, must encounter from wise and Christian men "a quite resolute opposition." Many, like myself, did and said nothing, because we really thought the whole thing was a hallucination and an impossibility. And now it has come suddenly upon us, to vanish, I hope, equally suddenly. But in the meantime, I have before me a pro- test which had some days ago begun to be influentially signed, but which is not yet made public, which embodies the same view as Dr. Rainy's. To-day it is said that the Home Secretary and the Lord-Advocate are simultaneously moving against such schemes, both in Scotland and in England. But 1 hope that the protest (of which I have merely a private copy) will be also published and circulated, for the correspondence on this subject is the Scotch newspapers has revealed an amount of mental and moral flabbiness -which was utterly unexpected. Walter Smith, who wrote " Olrig Grange" and "Hilda," has flashed out strong, smiting verses against this insult to arith- metic and to honesty ; but the dancing to these pipers has been feeble, and the number of wholly molluscous men who have either no view or no will on the subject is a disgrace to Scotland. Your article has had the tonic effect of " a great draught of scorn " upon not a few of us, and we need it all, for the duty which immediately follows upon the vanishing of this delusive phantom will be a very real one of earnest consultation and self-sacrifice, until—with help, as we hope, from the Government, from England, and from good and friendly men everywhere—we work through this dark and cloudy
Previous page
