40 JEDEHAL nrzroirrmn.
circular concerning lotteries shall be carried in the mails, thereby
making all matter concerning lotteries unmailable matter. The su-
_ preme court of the United States has stated, in two different opin-
ions, that the intention of congress, in passing the statute in question,
was to prohibit the sending of matter concerning lotteries through
the mails, because of the immoral tendencies of lotteries, it being
_ contrary to public policy to carry, as mail matter, anything concern-
ing them, inasmuch as they tended to demoralize the public mind.
‘ Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 821; Ex parte Jackson, 96 U. S. 736.
By the same decisions the constitutionality of this statute is sus-
tained.
1 understood the learned counsel for the defense to state, in his
opening addressed to you, that he conceded it was useless to deny that
the defendant was engaged in the lottery business, but he insisted
that the defendant had not used the mails, and challenged the govern-
ment to prove that the defendant had used the mails for the purpose
of carrying on the business. This narrows the issues in this case
down to the simple question, does the proof in this case satisfy you
that the defendant deposited, or caused to be deposited, in the mails
I the matter concerning lotteries charged in this indictment?
The charges in the indictment, which the government has at-
tempted to prove, specify three distinct offenses: The iirst is that
_the defendant mailed at the post·office in Chicago a letter directed to
Jim C. Holmes, Virden, Illinois, containing certain circulars and lot-
tery tickets; the second is that the defendant mailed at the Chicago
post-oilice a letter containing certain circulars and lottery tickets
directed to B. W. Williams, box 302, Collinsville, Illinois; and the
third oifense charged is the mailing of a letter at the Chicago post-
ofllce containing similar inclosures directed to Sam Moorey, at
Shiloh, Illinois. It is admitted by the witnesses for the government
that the names of Holmes, Williams, andMoorey are fictitious names,
and that the letters which it is charged the defendant mailed, con-
taining these circulars and tickets, were in answer to letters written
by Mr. McAfee and Mr. Mooney, 1·espectively,using the nctitious names
of Holmes, Williams, and Moorey, addressed to the defendant, B.
Frank Moore, 127 La Salle street, Chicago, inclosing money, and re-
questing that he invest it for them, respectively, in pursuance of an
advertisement of certain lotteries, which had been cut from a news-
paper, and in which they also requested a reply by mail.
It is claimed, on the part of the government, that the proof tends
to show that these letters mailed in Chicago, addressed to Holmes,
Williams, and Moorey, were mailed by the defendant in response, or
answer, to the Holmes, Williams, and Moorey letters, written by Mc-
Afee and Mooney. This court in several cases has had occasion to pass
upon the question as to whether the detection of crime, bymeans of
decoy letters, is allowable under the law, and has uniformly charged
the jury that it is an allowable method of detecting crime, stating in