The earliest mention of a lottery in Philadelphia occurs in 1720 when Charles Reed advertises "to sell his brick house in Third street by lottery." That house, if now known, should be the headquarters of lotteries now, as the proper "head and front of their offending."

In 1728, the city council, averse to all private projects in lotteries, interfere and frustrate the design of Samuel Keimer, printer, and once a partner of Franklin. He had advertised his purpose to make a lottery at the approaching fair, and the council, having sent for him and heard his case, gave orders that no such lottery should be attempted, and thus the affair dropped.

In 1748 began the first occasion of a sanctioned public lottery. It was altogether patriotic. It was in time of war, when great apprehension existed that the plunder of the city might be attempted by armed vessels. Individual subscriptions and a lottery were resorted to as means for raising the "Association Battery," then constructed near the present navy yard. On this occasion, the Friends put forth their strength to discourage lotteries, and read a rule against them in their meeting. Some controversy ensued.

Christ church steeple was the next subject of public interest, awakening general regard as an intended ornament and clock-tower. A lottery for this object was first instituted in November, 1752, and the drawing finished in March, 1753, of which further particulars may be seen in the article, " Christ Church."

In the same spirit, the citizens, in March, 1753, encouraged the institution of another lottery for another steeple, viz.: "for raising £850 towards finishing a steeple to the new Presbyterian church," at the north-west corner of Third and Arch streets. The lottery was drawn in May following.

The facilities of lotteries must then have been very encouraging, as we find, about this time, that the lottery expedients are numerous. On such occasions, they invited citizens of Philadelphia and other places to contribute for quite distant places. Thus, to raise tive hundred dollars to build a long wharf in Baltimore, a lottery is sold off in Philadelphia; and so to build a church in Brunswick, another is sold in Philadelphia. In Connecticut I see, in 1754, that £13,332 is raised by lottery there, to aid the building of the Princeton College, and tickets are sold in Philadelphia.

In 1754, they form a lottery of 5,000 tickets, at four dollars each, to raise a fund to complete the City Academy in Fourth street, then lately purchased of Whitfield's congregation: and in the next year a further lottery of four classes is made to raise 75,000 dollars, and net 9,375 dollars, for the general objects of the Academy, and to endow professorships, &c.

In 1760, St. Paul's church is helped to finish by a lottery. The bare walls were at first set up by subscription. First, a lottery of 5 000 tickets, at four dollars, is formed, by which to clear 3000 dol

lars; and the next year, another lottery, of 30,000 dollars, is formed to clear enough to buy off the ground-rent, &c

In 1761, the zeal for lotteries began to show itself as an evil. In this matter " every man did as seemed right in his own eyes." Thus, one man makes it for his store of books and jewelry, and Alexander Alexander so disposes of his forty-six acres of land on the south-west end of Petty's island, in lots, for 10,500 dollars. There are lotteries, too, announced for all the neighbouring churches: one for Bordentown, one for Lancaster, one for Middletown, one for Brunswick, one for Carlisle, Newtown, Forks of Brandywine, Oxford, and even Baltimore. Some, too, are for schools. It is even proposed to erect, by lottery, a great bath and pleasure garden. On this occasion, all the ministers combine to address the governor to resist it, as a place of vice.

Lotteries are also granted for raising funds to pave the streets. 1761, 12,500 tickets, at four dollars, making 50,000 dollars, are sold for raising 7,500 dollars to that purpose.

In the same year (1761) a lottery is made to pay off a company of rangers at Tulpehauken, for services against the Indians, in 1755, on a scheme of 5,000 tickets, at two dollars each! Another lottery is made to erect the light-house at Cape Henlopen, to raise £20,000; and the house itself was begun in 1762. The bridge over the Conestogoe is erected by lottery, and also the bridge at Skippack.

As a necessary sequel to the whole, the legislature had to interfere, to prevent so many calls upon the purses of their citizens, and soon after those lotteries, an act was passed to restrain lotteries!

It would strike us as a strange location for drawing of lotteries now, to name them as in stores on the wharves: but the lottery for St. Paul's church was drawn at a store on Gardener's wharf, above Race street. And a subsequent lottery for the Presbyterian steeple, (corner of Third and Arch streets,) was drawn in April, 1761, in Masters' store, on Market-street wharf.

Lotteries having so received their quietus, none appear to have been suggested till the lonely case of 1768, when a lottery was granted by the legislature, in four classes, for raising the sum of £5,250 for purchasing a public landing in the Northern Liberties, and for additional paving of the streets.

The history of lotteries, since our independence and self-government, and its lately pervading evil in all our cities, is too notorious, and too generally lamented by the prudent and considerate, to need any further notice in this connexion. In the hands of the wily traffickers in these unstable wares, legal enactments have been but "ropes of sand," without power to fetter them.

38

STEAMBOATS.

"Against the wind, against the tide,

She breasts the wave with upright keel."

In the year 1788, the bosom of the Delaware was first ruffled by a steamboat. The projector, at that early day, was John Fitch, a watch and clock maker by profession. He first conceived the design in 1785; and being but poor in purse, and rather limited in education, a multitude of difficulties, which he did not sufficiently foresee, occurred to render abortive every effort of his most persevering mind to construct and float a steamboat, called the Perseverance.

Applying to congress for assistance, he was refused; and then, without success, offering his invention to the Spanish government for the purpose of navigating the Mississippi. He at last succeeded in forming a company, by the aid of whose funds he launched his first rude effort as a steamboat, in the year 1788. The idea of wheels had not occurred to Mr. Fitch; but paddles, working in a frame, were used in place of them. The crude ideas which he entertained, and the want of experience, subjected this unfortunate man to difficulties of the most humbling character. Regarded by many as a mere visionary, his project was discouraged by those whose want of all motive for such a course rendered their opposition more barbarous; while those whose station in life placed it in their power to assist him, looked coldly on, barely listening to his elucidations, and receiving them with an indifference that chilled him to the heart. By a perseverance as unwearied as it was unrewarded, his darling project was at length sufficiently matured, and a steamboat was seen floating at the wharves of Philadelphia, more than fifty years ago. So far, his success, amid the most mortifying discouragements, had been sufficient to prove the merit of the scheme. But a reverse awaited him, as discouraging as it was unexpected. The boat performed a trip to Burlington, a distance of twenty miles, when, as she was rounding at the wharf, her boiler burst. The next tide floated her back to the city, where, after great difficulty, a new boiler was procured. In October, 1788, she again performed her trip to Burlington. The boat not only went to Burlington, but to Trenton, returning the same day, and moving at the rate of eight miles an hour. It is true, she could hardly perform a trip without something breaking; not from any error in Fitch's designs or conceptions, but, at that time, our mechanics were very ordinary; and it was impossible to have machinery, so new and complex, made with exactness and competent skill. It was on this account that Fitch was obliged to abandon the great invention, on which the public looked coldly. From these