OCR Text |
Show LOTTERY LETTERS. Unmailable Matter. The one hundred or more lottery companies in this country, which daily make use of the United States mails, received a temporary check last week, by an order of the Postmaster General directing that all letters to ?? or agents ?? letters be sent to the Dead Letter Office as unmailable matter. It is held that the lottery superscription on an envelope is proper evidence that its contents have reference to lotteries. The companies, of course, will change the form of their letter superscription, and the Post-office Department is asked whether letters to accredited agents of lottery companies shall be stopped. This the authorities are not willing yet to decide. While 99 per cent of the mail matter to an agent may be illegal, the one per cent may not be, and to refuse to deliver regular mailable matter is considered in law a great crime. We may expect, therefore, a prolonged and dismal cry from the Liberal League on the action of the Postmaster-General, and perhaps resolutions about civil liberty. If the sending of sealed letters to lottery schemes through the mails is unlawful, how much more unlawful is the sending of newspaper advertisements and long toothsome articles about "fortunate" holders of certain numbers." Not only that, but the days of drawing, the prices, and the agents in this and other cities of whom tickets can be had, are freely advertised in bold defiance of the law. If the local officers fail to take the matter in hand, might not the Post-office authorities put a stop to the whole business by refusing to deliver newspapers containing these unlawful advertisements?-N. Y. Examiner and Chronicle. |