The End of the Gamble: The Termination of the Virginia Lotteries in March 1621*

The sudden cancellation of the Virginia lotteries during the first sitting of the parliament of 1621 was not part of a general parliamentary attack on monopolies but a calculated political act intended to pressure the Virginia Company of London to pay more taxes than required by its charter of 1612. The appropriate context for considering the cancellation is the financial difficulties of James I and the search for funds by Sir Lionel Cranfield. The cancellation coincided with a rejection of a new charter for the company, possibly incited by Count Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador in England. The cancellation of the lotteries was the most important turning point in the history of Jamestown and started the company on its downward spiral.     

《钦定宪法大纲》与清末政治博弈

《钦定宪法大纲》是清末一个重要的宪法性文件,是各方政治势力博弈的结果。大纲的产生自有其合理的一面。虽然大纲带有浓厚的封建性,但诸多条文仍不乏合理性、进步性和民主性。大纲在中国宪政史上确立了根本法的地位,确立了二元制君主立宪政体,初步确立了分权模式,初步确立了权利义务观念,与西方宪政初步实现了形式上的对接。     

危险的愉悦：早期美国华侨赌博问题研究（1850—1943年）

论文勾勒了早期美国华侨的赌博情形,分析了他们参赌、设赌的各种原因和社会危害,探讨了华侨社会、中美两国政府对华侨赌博问题管理和控制的效能。作者认为,早期大部分美国华侨热衷于赌博,主要是赌博为特定历史场景中的华侨提供了一种重要的社会活动方式,被他们视为实现黄金梦的一条捷径。经济利益的驱动致使华侨热衷开设赌馆,也使华侨堂号勾结警察,暴力护赌。赌博对美国华侨社会的危害是巨大的,它使一些华侨不能履行自己对家庭的义务和责任,还引发了吸毒、盗窃、＂堂斗＂等其他社会问题。在控制赌博的行动中,由于华侨社团和中国驻美领事权力有限,威望不高,而华侨赌商和堂号与美国警察互相勾结,致使禁赌行动难有成效。     

Gambling,Resource Distribution,and Racial Economy: An Examination of Poker Machine Expenditure in Three Remote Australian Towns

Our aim in this paper is to examine the ways in which electronic gaming machines (EGMs) redistribute resources to and from three remote towns in the Northern Territory (NT), namely Katherine, Tennant Creek and Nhulunbuy. We describe EGM expenditure levels in each town at the level of the individual venue, examine patterns of socioeconomic status within each town, explore the ways in which EGM markets are racialised through venue gate‐keeping practices and spatially‐based alcohol regulations, and examine the effects of resource redistribution mechanisms designed to return a proportion of EGM profits to host communities. The ability of venues to draw resources from extremely disadvantaged groups from the remote periphery is of central concern when attempting to assess the societal consequences of gambling in remote towns, both in terms of individual harm and the adequacy of resource redistribution. Existing mechanisms for resource redistribution are both selective and relatively meagre, pointing to a political and racial economy of EGM gambling that transfers resources from remote towns to sites of centralised ‘white’ power. We conclude that political economy in the context of remote NT towns may not be understood outside a consideration of racial economy and the way that constructed notions of race operate to legitimate existing processes of economic exploitation and resource redistribution.     

Unsettling Migrant Reintegration: The Serial Risk-Taking of Returning Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) to Cordillera,Philippines

In 2017, the Philippine government boosted its campaign on Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) reintegration, a set of programmes designed to aid returning Filipino labour migrants. In this paper, I examine migrant reintegration through the case of returned migrants to the province of Benguet, Philippines. Rather than use “sustainability of return” as main focus of assessment, I foreground instead the historical geographies undergirding the current reiteration of this migration policy. By doing so, I demonstrate how the “gambling” practices of returned migrants can be read as not an easy acquiescence to the neoliberal imperative for self-entrepreneurship encouraged by the Philippine state. In highlighting gambling as an embodied strategy emerging from and through imperial histories, I argue that migrant reintegration gets revealed as rehearsal of certain colonial logics that have oriented certain peoples to the labour of serial risk taking for survival. Close attention to return migrants’ gambling practices raises urgent questions regarding the relentless push for entrepreneurship as development solution.     

Hong Kong and Macao under Chinese Sovereignty

A team of Hong Kong-based geographers led by a noted specialist provides a comparative overview of Hong Kong and Macao under Chinese sovereignty (respectively, since 1997 and 1999). The authors outline the historical development of both cities, identifying their common legacies as colonial enclaves as well as shared economic experience as autonomous Special Administrative Regions (SARs) under the "one country, two systems" formula devised in Beijing. The paper includes up-to-date statistical information (some through March 2008) on per capita GDP, visitors from Mainland China and from abroad (for both cities), direct investment, employment in financial services, trade and logistics, and tourism (for Hong Kong) as well as revenues from gambling casinos in Macao that are reportedly surpassing those of Las Vegas. Journal of Economic Literature, O16, O18, O20, R11. Classification Numbers: 11 figures, 4 tables, 46 references.     

六博棋局的演变

六博棋局、日晷、铜镜上共有的TLV纹从何而来,一直以来聚讼纷纭.本文系统整理考古出土的六博棋局,依据图案加以归纳,并进行历时的排比,以考察演变的过程,并认为TLV纹是六博棋局发展到西汉时代的样式,出现年代不早于战国末年.     

Is State Gambling Policy “Morality Policy”? Framing Debates Over State Lotteries

The politics of so‐called “morality policies” including same‐sex marriage, abortion, gun control, and gambling have captured the attention of both the public and political scientists in recent years. Many studies have argued that morality policy constitutes a category of public policy that has distinctive characteristics (such as technical simplicity and less amenability to compromise) compared with non‐morality policy. However, in a recent contribution Mucciaroni argues that morality “policy” should instead be viewed primarily as a strategy for framing issues. Drawing on examples from the debate over gay rights, Mucciaroni finds that opponents focus on rational‐instrumental or procedural frames more so than engaging in “morality talk.” In this study, I seek to extend Mucciaroni's analysis to the issue of lottery gambling in the United States. Drawing on data from legislative records in four states, I find that lottery critics mostly avoid private behavior‐based morality arguments. Instead, they criticize government's role in sanctioning lotteries and denounce the negative consequences of gambling. Supporters, meanwhile, emphasize the potential benefits of lottery creation and the importance of allowing the state public a voice on the issue. The results indicate that rational‐instrumental arguments coexist alongside morality talk in state lottery debates, and that private behavior morality frames are on the decline while governmental morality frames are on the rise.     

社会节奏与自然节律的契合--近代江南地区的农事活动与乡村娱乐

乡村戏剧、社会交往及赌博是近代江南乡村地区几种比较重要的娱乐活动。但细究之下,这些活动并非在一年之中的每一个时段都会均匀地进行,而总是会伴随着农事活动的开展显示出一定的周期性,即通常集中在农闲时期进行,一入农忙则就很少发生。这实际上反映出一种社会节奏与自然节律间相契合的关系。     

Exploring the Backstage of Victorian Respectability

This paper shares Andersson’s interest in exploring the ‘backstage’ of Victorian civility and respectability. The adroit media manipulation of high-status leading reformers and their associations and societies, with their often overlapping membership, has accorded them an inflated importance as a representation of the Victorian Age, and can distort our understanding. The argument here begins by problematizing the ways some historians have made use of contemporary statistics and terms such as ‘respectability’ or ‘vice’. For the Victorians these carried multiple meanings and cultural resonances, partially dependent on identities of class, gender, generation, Tory or Liberal political orientation, attitude to faith, and ethnicity. This meant that the complex nuances of understanding attached to activities sometimes labelled as unrespectable ‘vices’ such as drinking, sexual transgression and gambling could make them acceptable in a variety of cultural contexts despite the opposition of vociferous anti-‘vice’ groups. The paper concludes with a brief exploration of the potentiality of visual and digital resources for delving deeper into such issues.