Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/421

393 LOTTERY BONDS. . 393 the deeds of loan which he is preparing to put in circulation. These conditions are made the subject of express clauses in the law of authorization. The authorization has only been granted to bonds which conform to certain regulations. It has established a certain proportion between the face of the bond, the yearly interest, and the total of the prizes, arranging in this way beforehand the amount of chance which may be offered to the public.^ The seller of a lottery bond, then, like the original circulator, must refrain from infringing the essential conditions of the authorization; he must respect the form of the bond as regularly issued. Any one who offers to the public business ventures in authorized lottery bonds organizes a lottery in the sense of Article 2 of the law of. 1836, if he modifies the conditions under which the issue was per- mitted : ** To establish a lottery means not only to create a new lottery, but also to offer the possibility of taking part in a pre- existing lottery, after having modified the conditions." ^ Such is the principle established in France by an unbroken line of decis- ion, formulated for the first time by the Cour de Cassation in three decisions of 1866;^ and repeated in 1882;^ a principle which receives the approval of the most recent writers on the subject. By virtue of this principle, it is unanimously admitted that every transaction in which these are offered to the public must have regard to the following essentials: ist. The unity of the bond.^ 2d. The nominal value of the bond and its rate of pay- ment. 3d. The yearly income attached to the bond. 4th. The chances by lottery. 5th. The number of drawings. Any modifica- cation of the conditions just stated exposes the seller to the penalties of the law of 1836. In the light of this principle, French writers, and in many points the courts, both civil and criminal, have been forced to examine 1 The offer to the public is the essential element of the misdemeanor foreseen and published by the law of 1836. Hence we do not treat here of sales between private individuals. When the sale has not been preceded by an offer to the public, the prin- ciple of the liberty of contract covers all the clauses of the agreement, whatever be the result, 2 Report of Counsellor M. Nouquier before the Criminal Chamber of the Cour de Cassation. Couttet Case, loth February, 1866. 8 Cour de Cassation, Criminal Chamber, loth February, 24th March, and 4th May, 1866. ^ By this is meant the concentration in one and the same instrument of the right to the capital, to the interest, and to the chances of lottery.
 * Idem, 8th July, 1882, and many later decisions.