US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

The scheme of a lottery contained a stationary prize for the first drawn number on each of twelve days during which the drawing was to continue, and the first drawn number on the tenth day was to be entitled to $30,000, payable in part by three hundred tickets, from Nos. 501 to 800 inclusive. No. 623, one of the three hundred tickets to be given in part payment of the said prize, was drawn first on that day, and decided to be entitled to the prize of $30,000. After the drawing for the day was concluded, the managers reversed this decision and awarded the prize to No. 4760, which was drawn next to No. 623, and had drawn a prize of $25, which they decreed to No. 623.

In drawing the same lottery, it was discovered on the last day that the wheel of blanks and prizes contained one blank less than ought to have been put into it, and to remedy this mistake an additional blank was thrown in.

In an action brought by the managers against a person who had purchased the whole lottery for the purchase money, it was held that these irregularities did not vitiate the drawing of the lottery, the conduct of the managers having been bona fide and the affirmance of their acts not furnishing any inducement to the repetition of the same mistake nor any motive for misconduct of any description.

Quaere whether the ticket No. 623 or No. 4760 was entitled to the prize of $30,000?