Dunn v. People of State
| Decision Date | 30 April 1866 |
| Citation | 1866 WL 4515,40 Ill. 465 |
| Parties | CHARLES M. DUNNv.THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS. |
| Court | Illinois Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
WRIT OF ERROR to the Recorder's Court of the city of Chicago; the Hon. EVERT VAN BUREN, Judge, presiding.
The opinion of the court contains a sufficient statement of the case.
Messrs. SCATES, BATES & TOWSLEE and Mr. W. K. MCALLISTER, for the plaintiff in error.
Mr. CHARLES H. REED, State's Attorney, for the people. Mr. JUSTICE LAWRENCE delivered the opinion of the Court:
In 1847, the legislature passed a law, making the vending of lottery tickets a penal offense, and punishing it with a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $500. Under this law the plaintiff in error was indicted in the Recorder's Court of Chicago, tried and found guilty. From the judgment rendered on that verdict he has prosecuted a writ of error.
The evidence shows that the defendant below was conducting what he termed, in his advertisements, a “gift sale” establishment. He kept upon his desk, at his place of business, a box, two and a half feet long, filled with envelopes standing edgewise. Each of these envelopes had printed upon its back an advertisement, purporting that the envelope contained some valuable recipes and popular songs, and also a card, descriptive of some article in an “immense stock of over 250,000 pianos, watches, sewing machines, engravings, sets of jewelry, books, etc., worth $1,500,000, all to be sold for one dollar each, without regard to value, and not to be paid for until you know what you are to receive.” A hand-bill advertisement, of which large numbers were found at the store, upon the counter and at the door, was put in evidence, and this gave a list of a great variety of articles, and professed that some of these articles was represented by the card in the envelope. A card might represent a grand piano or a finger-ring, but whatever article the purchaser might find specified upon the card contained in the envelope bought by him, that article he would be entitled to purchase for one dollar. The price of an envelope was twenty-five cents. The prosecution proved the sale by the plaintiff in error of one of the envelopes with a card and some printed songs and recipes inclosed.
It is urged very strenuously by the counsel for the plaintiff in error, that the sale of one of these envelopes, with the recipes, the songs, and the card, was not the sale of a lottery ticket. The term “lottery” has no technical meaning in the law distinct from its popular signification, and we accept the definition quoted by counsel from one of the lexicographers. A lottery is “a scheme for the distribution of prizes by chance.” It is insisted by counsel that there is, in the case before us, no element of chance, and that, therefore, the radical idea of a lottery is wanting. The court is of a different opinion. It is true, as urged by counsel, that each envelope contained, besides the card, a number of songs and recipes, and that the card or ticket, representing an article of merchandise to be bought for one dollar, confers simply a right to buy which the holder can...
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People v. Monroe
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R. J. Williams Furniture, Co. v. McComb Chamber of Commerce
...148 N.Y.S. 375; also 256 S.W. 384, 162 P. 1100; 204 P. 1030; 204 P. 1029; 147 U.S. 449; 13 S.Ct. 409; 37 U.S. (L. Ed.) 237; Dunn v. People, 40 Ill. 465; Taylor Smetten, L. R. 11, Q. B. Div. 207; The Colorado case, 18 Colo. 321, 32 P. 821, 76 Am. St. Rep. 292; Yellowstone Kit v. State, 88 Al......
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