At many saloons and cigar stores there is a continuous raffle in
progress for a "fine gold watch." It is well for those who buy chances
to inspect the time piece with a critical eye. One of these watches
was submitted to a jeweler by the man who won it. "It's what we call
an auction watch," said the expert. "It is worth about 87 cents
wholesale. The case is gilded, and the works are of less value than
the movement of a 69-cent alarm clock. It was keep time until the
brass begins to show through the plate, and it may not."
One of the attractive forms of the raffle ticket game is valuing the
tickets at from 1 cent up to as high as desired. The man who buys a
chance draws a little envelope containing his number. If he is lucky
and draws a small number he is encouraged to try again. This is a
sort of double gamble, and many men cannot resist the temptation to
speculate upon the chances, simply in order to have the fun of drawing
the little envelopes.
Of course, many of the raffles are for cases of genuine charity, and
it is an easy way to raise a fund for some worthy object. Many a
person would not accept an outright gift, even in case of sickness
or death, will permit friends to raffle off a piano or a bicycle for
a good round price in order to obtain a fund to tide him over an
emergency. To buy tickets for this kind of a raffle is praiseworthy.