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Description: | Song advertising E. Humbles lottery. To be sung to the tune of 'Chevy Chase'.Another of the numerous lottery songs collected by John Bell, this song was printed to advertise the lottery of E. Humble and Sons. Originally situated on Middle Street, the lottery office moved to Collingwood Street in 1819. Humble's appears to have done a great business in lottery tickets and issued numerous advertisements tempting the local populace to gamble. The extent and variety of printed matter they produced is quite astounding, having tried every means by which to tempt the public - poetry, prose, pictures, epigrams, conundrums etc.Humble's lottery offered prizes ranging from ��1000-��40,000, an enormous amount of money at the time. How frequently the lottery was drawn is not clear, although it seems evident that the draw was often held over a number of days. The vast amount of lottery songs pasted into Bell/White 2 can only be seen as an indication of the popularity of the lottery in Newcastle.The first public lottery in England occurred in 1569, with the profits devoted to the purpose of making harbours, repairs of public works etc. In the early nineteenth century the State lottery was a regular institution in Britain, the profits yielding the national exchequer more than a million pounds a year. Newspapers in London and provincial areas teamed with advertisements appealing to the gambling instincts of the people. The usual number of tickets in a lottery was 20,000 each of the value of ��10. These tickets were first sold to contractors, then to the public at a profit. The poorer classes of course could not afford these vast sums and to accommodate this the tickets were divided into halves, quarters, eighths and sixteenths.This song is part of the John Bell Collection. ; A collection of broadsheets on various subjects, with accompanying press cuttings and manuscript notes in the hand of John Bell. | Publisher: | E. Humble Collingwood Street, Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear | Rights holder: | rights holder : Newcastle University | Subjects: | entertainment and sport Leisure lottery & gambling | Temporal: | start=1801;end=1840; | Source: | Folk Archive Resource North East | Identifier: | farne:N0123401 | Go to resource |
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