Page:History of Barrington, Rhode Island (Bicknell).djvu/540

 436 THE HISTORY OF BAKRINGTON. noon, or thereabouts, with a second service in summer from two to three. The singing was congregational, the minister reading the whole hymn, and then reading two lines for the congregation to sing, and so on through the hymn. The minister or some one of the congregation acted as chorister, to pitch the tune and lead in the singing. The order of ser- vices was mainly that of the Congregational Church of our time, the invocation, the singing of a hymn, the reading of the scriptures, the long prayer, another hymn, the sermon, ncrt; a long one from Father Townsend, a third hymn, and the benediction. Among the Sabbath notices that were read at the week-day and other meetings, and of deepest in- terest to young and old, were the intentions of marriage between the members of the parish, and sometimes persons of neighboring towns. In 1773 the meeting-house sadly needed repairs and there were no funds at command. Resort was had to the public lottery, which had been legalized by the General Assembly since 1744. The lottery system was introduced into Rhode Island in 1733, but was suppressed by law, for the reason as stated, "that by these unlawful games, called lotteries, many people have been led into a foolish expense of money." A penalty of five hundred pounds was placed on the scheme, and a fine of ten pounds on any one holding a ticket. Eleven years later the lottery system was again legalized, and a scheme of fifteen thousand dollars was allowed for building Weybosset Bridge in Providence. The plan of a lottery was as follows : A certain money value was divided into a number of unequal prizes, and then a number of tick- ets was sold, each ticket giving a chance of winning one of the prizes. If all the tickets were sold, the profits of the lot- tery were large, and might be enormous ; if not, the managers diminished the risks by playing the unsold tickets, and re- serving the prizes which might fall on them. From a machine called "The Wheel of Fortune," as many numbers were drawn from another similar machine, the order in which they came out determining to what tickets they should belong.