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Beginning of the end of lotteries -- Curious handbills.
56 Geo. III. c. 61, passed June 20, was the Act for the lottery of 1816, in which the prizes were £609,730, and the profit £164,686 15_s._ 8_d._ Year after year the introduction of the annual Lottery Act was the occasion of an endeavour to induce the Chancellor of the Exchequer to discontinue the practice of raising revenue by this means; but, for a long time, all such pleadings were ineffectual. The reply vouchsafed was invariably to the same effect, that it was impossible for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consent to renounce a sum which must be supplied by some other tax, which would in all probability operate even more oppressively on the people.