SAFE AND SURE. FAIR AND SQUARE. ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SIXTH GRAND MONTHLY DRAWING CLASS "A" OF THE LOUISIANA STATE LOTTERY COMPANY WILL TAKE PLACE AT NEW ORLEANS...[caption title]

[Chicago: National Printing Co., late 1884].. 4pp. on a single folded sheet of pink paper. Old horizontal folds, top edge creased. Very good. A seemingly unrecorded example of an ephemeral publication issued for the semi- annual lottery held in New Orleans in the late 19th century. This piece advertises the Louisiana State Lottery Company's drawing for January 13, 1885, to be held in New Orleans "under the supervision and management" of two former Confederate generals and Civil War legends - P.G.T. Beauregard and Jubal Early. The two men promoted the Louisiana Lottery Company for fifteen years, bringing respectability to the company and considerable wealth to themselves. They left the company only after a considerable public backlash against state-sponsored gambling in Louisiana. The pamphlet lays out the plan of the lottery, an "Explanation of Approximation Prizes," a detailed list of prizes to be won (including the "capital prize" of $75,000), and a list of past prize winners with their addresses and the amounts they won. The blurb for the Louisiana State Lottery Company ends by touting it as "The only Lottery ever voted on and endorsed by the people of any State." It was indeed, for its time, the only legal lottery in the United States, though cries of corruption and fraud grew louder with each passing year, until the lottery shut down in 1893. OCLC records several similar pamphlets from various years between 1877 and 1890, but none for 1885.