{"id":194,"date":"2022-12-12T13:03:40","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T12:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/?p=194"},"modified":"2023-06-19T11:51:32","modified_gmt":"2023-06-19T09:51:32","slug":"a-christmas-tale-of-the-lottery-to-raise-the-spirits-or-perhaps-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/2022\/12\/12\/a-christmas-tale-of-the-lottery-to-raise-the-spirits-or-perhaps-not\/","title":{"rendered":"A Christmas tale of the lottery to raise the spirits (or perhaps not)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Christmas! A time for giving, a time for helping people in need, a time for those who are blessed with plenty to share with those who have little, not least in these war-torn days with levels of poverty and hunger increasing worldwide. Well, it\u2019s an appealing way of thinking, but it\u2019s not a universally held view of the festive season \u2013 either now or in the past \u2013 and it doesn\u2019t seem to be the view advanced by \u2018The Lottery, a Christmas Tale\u2019, a short story printed in a seasonal anthology from 1775.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For researchers exploring the history of lotteries, source material can pop up in unexpected places, and this is the case with this little lottery tale found within the pages of The Christmas Frolick; Or, Mirth for the Holidays<\/em>. This short book, published in London, is a collection of stories, songs, jokes and anecdotes \u2013 all intended to provide entertainment during the festive season, and, as the subtitle puts it, \u2018to warm the Imagination, raise the Spirits in the gloom of Winter, and procure, what every one wishes, A Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year<\/em>\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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‘The Lottery, A Christmas Tale’. This short little tale tells a story of courtship and rapidly changing luck. Eighteenth Century Collections Online (Gale Primary Sources).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In what manner does \u2018The Lottery, a Christmas Tale\u2019 warm the imagination and raise the spirits? Running to just two pages, it tells the story of Lucinda, a young lady of Lincolnshire, who is courted by several suitors who believe that she will inherit her father\u2019s fortune. Her father, though, dies insolvent, and the suitors turn tail \u2013 all but a Mr. Freeland, a worthy man of means (with a name suggesting a mercantile profession: it recalls \u2018Sir Andrew Freeport\u2019, the merchant of the earlier Spectator <\/em>essays). Lucinda selflessly refuses Freeland, not wanting to burden him with a wife who brings no fortune. But then, in this tale of rapidly changing luck, she inherits \u00a312,000 from an uncle, at which point she plans a trick \u2013 or a test of male virtue \u2013 and it is here that the lottery comes in: she lets it be known that she has won a \u00a310,000 prize in the recent draw. The suitors renew their courtship, all except for Freeland, who doesn\u2019t want to appear to be a fortune hunter. When the actual winner of the \u00a310,000 prize is announced in the newspapers, the suitors are enraged and abandon her again. Lucinda reveals the true situation to Freeland and they are happily united. But there is more joy in store for the couple. \u2018What heightens the Beauty of this Story\u2019, the final sentence informs, \u2018is, that Mr Freeland obtained a Prize of 5000 l. in that very Lottery, which, as his Fortune was ample, he settled on Lucinda the Day preceeding their Marriage\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The device of the supposedly lost fortune as a generator of plot would have been familiar to many readers in 1775. They might, for example, have encountered it at the theatre in Charles Macklin\u2019s popular farce Love \u00e0 la Mode<\/em>, which similarly has a heroine pretend to lose her wealth to test the intentions of her admirers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The device of the supposedly lost fortune was a common generator of plot in eighteenth-century literature, as in Charles Macklin’s popular farce Love \u00e0 la Mode<\/em>. \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Readers would also have encountered numerous stories with comparable \u2018virtue rewarded\u2019 plots, for they were a staple of literary culture. One of the most popular examples was Samuel Richardson\u2019s novel Pamela<\/em>, from 1740, which was actually subtitled Virtue Rewarded<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Perhaps the most famous eighteenth-century example of the ‘virtue rewarded’ plot was Samuel Richardson’s novel Pamela<\/em>. It became an instant best-seller and is generally considered to have played a critical role in the development of the novel in English. Print from 1742 by the French printmaker Hubert-Fran\u00e7ois Gravelot (1699-1773) after a design by the painter and decorator Francis Hayman (1708-1776). Wikimedia Commons\/Public Domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lucinda and Freeland display a conventional type of virtue. In this miniature romance, both show that they are not in the marriage game for the money; they are free of avarice. At the same time, though, they are shown to be preoccupied with money, with Freeland\u2019s implied trade and Lucinda\u2019s devaluation of herself as a marriageable commodity when her father dies penniless. And their reward, alongside gaining each other, comes in the form of money \u2013 an absolute deluge of it, none of it really needed since Freeland already has his \u2018ample\u2019 fortune.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spirits and imaginations of readers may well have been raised and warmed by this ending \u2013 by the couple\u2019s double luck, as inheritance and the lottery render them staggeringly wealthy, and by the neatness and irony of a pretended lottery win being followed by an actual lottery win. But others may have thought that the story ends too soon: we are given no hints as to the couple\u2019s future; we are told nothing about what they might do with their money. In Richardson\u2019s Pamela<\/em>, the poor heroine gains her reward \u2013 again it comes in the form of marriage to a wealthy man (in this case, a sexual predator who she has managed to reform). But importantly, Richardson\u2019s work doesn\u2019t end quite there: it rather goes on to show Pamela performing acts of benevolence and charity \u2013 continuing to be virtuous by stretching a generous hand out beyond her home. \u2018The Lottery, a Christmas Tale\u2019 concludes without such a coda; it doesn\u2019t quite fulfil expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story may also be said to defy conventions of Christmas tales, but here it should be observed that, in its own day, such conventions were hardly well established. Still, it may still be instructive to compare it with that apogee of festive tales, Charles Dickens\u2019s A Christmas Carol<\/em> (1843), for the stories both revolve around money but they show it flowing in completely opposite directions. Money is at the core of Dickens\u2019s celebrated telling of the reform of Ebenezer Scrooge, from miser to festive philanthropist, and the basic trajectory that money follows is from individual\/private to public\/collective. With Scrooge\u2019s moral transformation, the sums of money that he is so protective of at the start of the story come to be distributed to the needy of London. Money is dispersed rather than gathered; its potential is activated in the name of virtue; the poor Cratchit family are able to dine on goose. In \u2018The Lottery, a Christmas Tale\u2019, however, we see the opposite, since what a prize lottery does is gather money from a large number of people \u2013 those who have bought tickets \u2013 and puts it in the hands of the few. Lucinda and Freeland\u2019s private gain comes at the expense of collective loss. Is that in the spirit of Christmas?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol <\/em>(1843), money is dispersed rather than gathered, when the miser Scrooge decides to share his wealth with the poor Cratchit family. The lottery works in an opposite manner, by gathering money from the many and placing it in the hands of the few. Illustration by Gilbert Scott Wright (1180-1958), in The Children’s Dickens: Stories selected from various tales<\/em> (1909). Wikimedia Commons\/Public Domain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

But perhaps depicting an already wealthy lottery winner in a type of feelgood story of this kind is innately problematic, since lotteries have long had a troubled connection to ideas of public good, whatever the efforts to promote them, both in the past and today, as schemes that benefit not just lucky individuals but society at large. It is a basic rule in the world of gambling that there can be no winners without losers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 1775, readers of \u2018The Lottery, a Christmas Tale\u2019 would have been made acutely aware of this if, as well as enjoying The Christmas Frolick<\/em>, they had been keeping an eye on the newspapers. A draw for the state lottery was underway at London\u2019s Guildhall at the time \u2013 the procedure could go on for more than six weeks \u2013 and if they picked up, for example, the Public Advertiser <\/em>of 23 December they could read of some lucky winners who had bought tickets from John Molesworth, a renowned lottery agent:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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No. 14,575, drawn on Thursday last a Prize of 5000l. is in Mr. Molesworth\u2019s Calculation, and was sold the 26th<\/sup> of October at the Offices, No. 67, Holborn; No. 30, Fleet-street; and No. 34, King-street, Cheapside; where also have been sold in the present Lottery, No. 59,276 a Prize of 5000l. one 2000l. in Shares, four 1000l. and one 500l. all which Tickets will appear at the Exchequer, indorsed by Mr. Molesworth.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Opening the pages of Lloyd\u2019s Evening Post <\/em>for 22-25 December, though, they would have encountered a much sadder story:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The young Gentleman who was found hanging in his bed-chamber last week, at his lodgings in King-street, Soho, is said to have lost a large sum of money in lottery insurances, which caused him to commit this rash action.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

We might spare a thought for the poor man \u2013 and perhaps more than a thought for others today in similar states of desperation, whether induced by gambling or other causes. It would be in the spirit of Christmas to do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christmas! A time for giving, a time for helping people in need, a time for those who are blessed with plenty to share with those who have little, not least in these war-torn days with levels of poverty and hunger increasing worldwide. Well, it\u2019s an appealing way of thinking, but it\u2019s not a universally held […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":152,"featured_media":208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ukategorisert","tag-lotteryfantasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/213"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ntnu.no\/blogger\/lotteryfantasy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}