It is a valid exercise of power in a state to protect the morals and advance the wel fare of the people by prohibiting any scheme bearing any semblance to a lottery or gam bling ; Long v. State, 74 Md. 565, 22 Atl. 4, 12 L. R. A. 425, 28 Am. St. Rep. 268.
"A lottery grant is not, in any sense, a contract, within the meaning of the consti tution of the United States, but is simply a gratuity and license, which the state, under its police powers, and for the protection of the public morals, may at any time revoke and forbid the further conduct of the lot tery ; and no right acquired during the life of the grant, on the faith of, or by agreement with, the grantee, can be exercised after the revocation of such grant and the forbidding of the lottery, if its exercise involves a con tinuance of the lottery as originally au thorized ;" Douglas v. Kentucky, 168 U. S. 488, 502, 18 Sup. Ct. 199, 42 L. Ed. 553, fol lowing Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U. S. 814, 25 L. Ed. 1079, where it was said, referring to lotteries: "Certainly the right to suppress them is governmental, to be exercised at all times by those in power at their discretion." A lottery charter is "in legal effect nothing more than a license. . .
The fact that one government authorizes lotteries and the sale of lottery tickets, can not authorize their sale in another govern-1 ment which forbids their sale; Horner v. U. S., 147 U. S. 462, 13 Sup. Ct. 409, 37 L. Ed. 237.
A purchase of a ticket in a foreign lottery outside the state, is a valid contract ; Mc Night v. Biesecker, 13 Pa. 328. An ordi nance which makes it unlawful "for any per son to have in his possession, unless it shown that such possession is innocent, any lottery ticket, "is unconstitutional, inasmuch as it places on the person accused of its vio lation, the burden of showing the innocence of his possession ; In re Wong Hane, 108 Cal.
680, 41 Pac. 693, 49 Am. St. Rep. 138.
Where it was undisputed that the defend ant was engaged in the lottery business, evi dence that he received an order for lottery tickets such as were subsequently mailed with the letter ; that the name used in the address of the letter was the same as that signed to the order ; thht the tickets bore his stamp, and that the letter enclosed his busi ness card, would justify the conclusion that the defendant deposited the letter in the post-office for mailing ; U. S. v. Noelke, 1 Fed. 426.
A court of equity will not grant relief where letters addressed to the secretary of a lottery company are detained by a post master under the direction of the postmaster general, if the pleadings fail to show that the letters had no connection with the lottery business ; Commerford T. Thompson, 1 Fed. 417. The act of June 8, 1872, R. S. § 4041, authorizes the postmaster-general to forbid the payment by any postmaster of a money order to any person engaged in the lottery business. But this does not authorize any person to open any letter not addressed to himself.
The act of March 2, 1895, prohibits bring ing lottery tickets into the country or mailing them; see France v. U. S., 164 U. S. 676, 17 Sup. Ct. 219, 41 L. Ed. 595.