purely legitimate method, whereby any person sending or bringing us the four tickets of their own coupon book and $3.20 will receive a pair of Defender shoes and four coupon books.

"Send the tickets of your own coupon book to us yourself, with 80 cents each, or the four tickets with $3.20.

"SPECIAL NOTICE.

"This book is sold with the positive understanding that should we at any time wish to discontinue issuing coupon books, or should you wish to discontinue selling the tickets, it can be done, we placing to your credit 25 cents for each ticket which you have NOT sold upon return of same to us, the same to be applied as part payment on any pair of Defender shoes which you select from our catalogue, upon your paying the difference between amount of your credit and the price of shoes."

You refer to my opinion rendered to your Department on August 31, 1900, in the case of the Midland Publishing Company, of Boston and St. Louis, and desire to know if the four cases you now present are to be distinguished from that thus considered or are to be governed by that opinion. It may be premised that, while the section above referred to forbids the use of the mails for advertising or transacting the business of such gambling enterprises as are there referred to, neither that nor any other statute forbids or discourages any legitimate business or methods which are free from that gambling element of lot or chance.

The plan of the Defender Shoe Store, as stated in these tickets, is somewhat obscure, but, as I construe it as a whole, it is, in substance, this:

A ticket is sent, we will say, to A, who returns it with 80 cents, and receives a book of four similar tickets to sell to four different persons, collecting from each, first, 20 cents, which repays him the 80 cents he first sent; second, he collects also from each 80 cents, making $3.20, which he takes with the four tickets to the Defender Shoe Store, and for which he gets a pair of shoes. And another book of four tickets is sent to each of the four persons to whom the first four were sold, and who is expected, in turn, to sell these

four tickets, upon the same terms, and get a pair of shoes therefor, and so on indefinitely; each one selling four tickets for $3.20, and returning the money and tickets to the store, getting a pair of shoes, and the company has received $4, the 80 cents first sent and the $3.20 in the first instance from A, and $3.20 from each of the others.

It will be seen that A, the originator of this series, gives nothing for his shoes except his services in selling the four tickets and returning them with the $3.20, as he has collected from the four purchasers the 80 cents he first paid.

We will now take the case of B, one of the four purchasers of the tickets. He has received another book of four tickets. He has already paid $1, which went toward A's shoes. He sells his four tickets as A did, collecting from each purchaser 20 cents and 80 cents, the former repaying to him 80 cents of the $1 he had paid, and the latter, or $3.20 in all, goes to the store, and he also gets a pair of shoes, which, as the ticket says at the close, has cost him but 20 cents, and so of each of the others of the four, and so on indefinitely.

It will be seen that, on the part of the store, this is a sale, in the first instance, of a pair of shoes for $4, and in each of the other cases, is such sale for $3.20; and that each of the purchasers of tickets has paid $1 toward the previous man's shoes, and has received therefor four tickets which, if he can sell them, will repay him 80 cents of that dollar and get him a pair of shoes also.

The only element of uncertainty as to getting the shoes in any particular case is the question whether he can thus sell the four tickets, and this depends upon himself and his own ability and exertions as much as ordinarily does the question whether one can sell that which he has for sale. And this is not "lot or chance" in the sense in which these words are used in the section referred to. In this respect this case differs materially from that of the Midland Publishing Company, considered in my opinion of August 31. In that case the condition upon which the prize was to be received depended for its performance entirely upon others, over whom or whose action in the premises neither the one to give nor the one to receive the prize had any control. In this case

the condition is to be performed by the party himself, who is entitled to the benefit of its performance And although this performance will depend upon finding some one willing to purchase, so also does every case of legitimate sale or attempted sale; and yet no one supposes that this injects into the transaction an element of what is popularly or legally called lot or chance.

If the condition upon which something-a prize, for instance-may be received, depends upon the beneficiary himself, his own ability or exertions, then it does not depend upon lot or chance, in any legal sense.

In this case, too, all the shoes thus sold are sold at the same, and, so far as we are enabled to know, at a fair price; and the peculiar inducement offered to each person is that his shoes will be paid for by some one else, as they will be if he can thus sell four tickets; and those who thus paid will, in turn, upon the same conditions, get shoes which are paid for by another purchaser. And this feature is common to all the four cases submitted. Of course, the chain will break somewhere, by the failure of some one to sell four tickets, in which case he will have paid toward the previous man's shoes without getting any himself. But even this failure has not been by lot or chance, but was, as in so very many other cases, an unsuccessful attempt at selling.

I do not attach much importance to the fact that, in this case, if a party has sold two tickets and can not sell the other two, they will be redeemed; nor, in the other cases considered, to similar promises to redeem unsold tickets or coupons; for the reason that the question in these cases is whether the prize itself depends upon lot or chance, and is not as to whether the expenditure or loss of the party in trying to procure it has been much, little, or nothing.

It has been objected that the opinion referred to overlooked a use of the cards there considered, which would, to a certain extent, eliminate the element of chance, namely, that the originator of the "chain," might himself return the ten cards with 20 cents for each, and thus, by something which depended upon himself alone, and not upon chance, secure the prize. With reference to this, it is quite sufficient to say that, in that case, the cards neither contemplated,

nor promised anything for any such use of them. On the contrary-and this was the expected principal source of revenue-it was expressly stipulated that the card should be distributed to ten other persons, each of whom was expected to receive, distribute, and have returned with the money, ten other cards; and, whether any of them did so or not, depended upon considerations over which no one else had any control.

THE PARISIAN SKIRT COMPANY.

The plan of the Parisian Skirt Company, of Syracuse, N. Y., is thus stated in the coupons sent out by that com

pany:

"DUPLICATE.

20 cents.

THE PARISIAN SKIRT COMPANY.

Series X 2 100

"How you can get an $8 Parisian skirt or waist, made to measure, any color

taffeta for 20 cents.

"Fill out blank on back and return this coupon with $1 postal or express order, for which the company will issue you a book of five coupons. Sell the five coupons for 20 cents each, thereby getting your $1 back. Each of those to whom you sell a coupon sends in, purchasing a book of five coupons for themselves. When your five coupons have been sent in to us in this way we have received $5 (the wholesale price, and you are entitled to a TAFFETA SILK WAIST OR SKIRT, made to measure.

"In case any person to whom you sell a coupon fails to send same in promptly you may ask for a duplicate and subscribe for the books yourself, with the privilege of reissuing at your leisure, thus avoiding delay or any forfeiture of the amount that is placed to your credit on account of books issued to your subscribers.

"Return this coupon to—

"THE PARISIAN SKIRT COMPANY, "245 West Onondaga Street, Syracuse, N. Y. "Principal office and factory, Syracuse, N. Y.

"Do not remit check or postage stamps for books.

Town:

"If a coupon has been lost or destroyed write us, giving number, and we will send you a duplicate. Inclose 2 cent stamp for return of books."

The plan thus outlined is, in its general features, similar to that of the Defender Shoe Store, just considered, with one exception, and, save as to that exception, what has been already said is applicable also here. The exception is in the fact that, in this case, the persons to whom the originator of a series sells the coupons are the ones to return them with the money, and, whether they will do so or not is a matter which he, the originator, can not control; and hence it may be said that this involves the same element of chance that was found in the case of the Midland Publishing Company. On the other hand, it may be said that, when these persons have become so much interested and have embarked in the enterprise and paid 20 cents each for a coupon, with the intention of sending the coupon and $1 for the purpose of getting a silk skirt in that way, the probability that they will carry out that intention is such as, in a business view, to remove the question from the region of mere chance into that of business calculation. But, however this may be, in this case the getting of what is offered is not "dependent upon lot or chance," for, in case one or more of the purchasers of a coupon fails to send it in with the money, the seller may procure duplicates and himself send them in with the money, with the same result as if they had been sent in by the purchaser; so that, whether he gets the skirt or not, depends entirely upon himself and not upon any chance. True he would have to pay more in that case for what he got, but this would militate rather against any gambling feature, and certainly would not make the prize any more dependent upon chance, which is the only question.

While I am not clear that this feature of the plan does not bring it technically within the prohibition of the section being considered, yet it is not clear to my mind that it does; and, inasmuch as the General Government should not interfere with private business by such a drastic measure as would be the exclusion of its correspondence from the mails. until it is clear that such business is in violation of law, I have to advise you that no action be taken at present in this

case.