"policy gambling", 1845 and 1851

[Joel S. Berson]

"policy gambling" is not in OED as a phrase.  The earliest compounds
for "policy" n.2 sense 1.c (draft rev. June 2008) are 1830, "policy
certificate"; and 1843, "policy office".
-----
New York Daily Tribune, 1851 March 20.  [Not confirmed from the
newspaper; apparently not in 19th Century U.S. Newspapers]
Rael, Black Identity & Black Protest, 194.  Rael also cites:
Foner and Lewis, The Black Worker, 1:246-247.

The seduction of the City---policy gambling, porter houses, with
their billiards and cards, create a gang of lazaroni of both sexes,
women hastening through the streets, with their bonnets untied; men,
shirtless and shoeless, hanging round the corners, or standing,
walking, gutter-tumbling---signs which our foes call the type of our condition.
-----
The following is presumably "lottery policy" and "gambling shop", not
"policy gambling".

The North American and Daily Advertiser, (Philadelphia, PA) Tuesday,
September 30, 1845; Issue 2025; col C.  [19th Century U.S. Newspapers]

Lottery policy gambling. It is correctly states that much of the
goods stolen from the store of Tiffany & Young, by their porter, were
recovered at several of the lottery policy gambling shops in Chapel street.
-----

Joel

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org