The "North-China Daily News," in supporting the idea of a Shanghai Municipal Lottery, says it understands that the matter is being carefully and sympathetically considered by the Municipal Council. Its "understanding" in this respect is premature for we do not believe that the Council has so far discussed the project in any official way. At the same time we would express the hope that it will do so in the near future, and will prepare some practical scheme which may be submitted for the endorsement of the forthcoming ratepayers' meeting. A lottery may not come into the realm of high finance,' but limited to the purposes we have outlined, it has our heartiest support on a variety of grounds, It is scarcely conceivable that there can be any legal objection to a lottery which would not be overcome by a little ingenuity. If through some strict interpretation of the Land Regulations it might be argued that the Council have no power to organize lotteries, they might give their blessing to a small committee who would undertake the task for them. "Get rich quick" opportunities which may have a demoralizing effect should not be encouraged, but the attitude adopted in some quarters that a lottery is a temptation of the devil and represents the first easy step on the path to perdition, is sheer nonsense. At any rate, we are satisfied that a representative meeting of Shanghai's ratepayers would not be sufficiently puritanical to take this point of view. If it did, we would say that hypocrisy could go no further.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.