Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/416

S'iS HARVARD LAW REVIEW. which is purely and exclusively legal. Our sole purpose is to give here a rapid glance at the many legal problems of a particularly delicate solution, which are occasioned by the issue, the negotia- tion, and the payment of lottery bonds. Let there, then, be no misapprehension of the questions under consideration. When we speak of issue, of negotiation, of pay- ment, we do -not have in view the processes by which the lottery bond is issued, negotiated, and paid ; for the instruments of which we are about to treat, these processes are not materially different from the methods in use in issuing, negotiating, and paying ordi- nary bonds. Our chief interest lies in the legal difficulties which are encountered in issuing, negotiating, or paying these securities, — difficulties which are not met with in ordinary bonds, and which arise solely from the concurrent lottery privileges attached by the borrower at the first issue. A lottery bond, as we have said, is the combination of a deed of loan and of a lottery ticket. We will now investigate the influence which this combination has upon the legality of the issue, of the negotiation, and of the payment of such instruments. 11. In all civilized countries the lottery is forbidden by penal law. Experience, old as the world, has taught that the kind of gambling in which the gambler may at once attain wealth by the payment of a small deposit excites in the highest degree the passion and cupidity of mankind. Strong, indeed, are they who resist the fascination of fortune's wheel. Many governments have turned this means of temptation to their profit, and many states at this very hour number the lottery among their most important fiscal resources. In Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy, and Denmark the state lottery appears as a powerful and reliable means of revenue. In France the state lottery existed until 1832, when this institution was abolished by law, a measure dictated to the French legislator by a sentiment of high moral feeling. In many countries of Europe state lotteries have been abolished (England, Sweden, etc.). Private lottery is forbidden in all the countries which we have enumerated above. The establishment of a lottery is a mis- demeanor per scy and falls under the jurisdiction of the penal law. This prohibition is based on two very different motives. In the countries where the state lottery still exists for the purposes of revenue, and furnishes the public treasury its surest resources, the