Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/429

401 LOTTERY BONDS. 401 Such are the general principles which govern the matter in the absence of special provisions. But some States have regulated in express statute with great restrictions the issue of lottery bonds on their territory. In Germany the law of the 8th of June, 1871, forbids all issue of foreign lottery bonds throughout the Empire. The Austrian and Hungaria^i laws of 1889, before mentioned, which were visibly inspired by the German law, contain analogous prohibitions. In Belgium the law of the 30th of December, 1867, subordinates the legality of these issues to a previous sanction of the government. (2) Circulation. — Foreign lottery bonds, of which the issue has been duly sanctioned in a country, circulate there, and are nego- tiated as bonds of the country, under the same conditions and under the same prohibitions. As to bonds from lottery loans of which the issue has not been specially authorized in a country where an authorization of this sort is indispensable, or else a pro- hibition of the lotteries may be assumed, the territory of the country is closed to them, and the existence of such instruments could not be revealed with impunity. The sale of these instru- ments is an offence against the law, and falls within the province of the penal code. The principle is almost universally admitted, and the contrary opinion has only been sustained by isolated de- cisions. In the United States, for example, a decision was given by the court of New York that the lotteries of Austria did not come under the articles which forbid lottery ,1 and an analogous decision is found in California; but the contrary has been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States.^ It is by virtue of this principle, and on the basis of the law of 1836, that decision has been rendered in France that it is for- bidden to bring to the attention of the public by announcements, prospectuses, or any other means of publicity, the existence of un- authorized foreign lottery bonds. The publication of the winning numbers even is sufficient to expose the one who attempts it to the penalties of the law of 1836.^ Belgian law on this last point is broader than the French, and shows that insertions in the papers indicating simply the result of passed drawings, without informing the public about the conditions for sharing in these 1 Kohn V. Koehler, 96 N. Y. Rep. 362. 2 Edward H. Horner v. The United States, 147 U. S. Rep. 449. 3 Cour de Cassation de France, 14th January, 1876.