The 'Vanity Fair' Lottery Scandal
When a Seattle game of chance faced accusations of fraud, the proprietor was forced to defend his honor in the pages of the local press.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The lottery known as 'Vanity Fair' was challenged last night for a count at the time of 'ripping down.' The challengers seemed over-anxious to prove fraud. They were, however, disappointed, as the total amount guaranteed to be on the frames was found, on the count, to be all there.
[In a follow-up card published later], Joseph Fares, proprietor of the Vanity Fair, addressed the 'dissatisfaction that has been expressed at one of our lotteries, through a failure to make good the amount that should have been displayed by the ripping down at night.' Fares wrote: 'I feel it my duty to state that there have been no dissatisfaction expressed in reference to the way business has been conducted at my place, and that all statements to that effect are without any foundation in fact. I am as fully conscious as anybody can be, of the vital necessity of doing business in a straightforward manner.'
“I am as fully conscious as anybody can be, of the vital necessity of doing business in a straightforward manner.”
Public anxiety over 'fairness' in local games of chance and the integrity of businesses has long been a staple of Seattle civic life. Today's scrutiny of online gaming and unregulated markets finds a clear, if simpler, ancestor in the 1876 'ripping down' of a lottery frame.
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