Lotteries.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3048, 21 November 1878, Page 1

Lotteries.

| The following little paragraph has been jgoing the rounds'.'of the Italian papers :— ,"At the last, drawing of the lottery at Naples the Padre Mattia Salvatpre, son ,of the lottery agent at the Piazza Dante, jwpn a aum of 2,110,000 lire (£84,400). jSinee the Neapolitan lottery was founded, two centuries ago, no such prize has ever jbeen gained by one man." How tantaliz,ingly this: announcement must hare itwinkled before the eyes^ of thousands of jthe padre's countrymen !•> ; The.,; great Tuscan, lpttery vil which/used to be drawn (Leghorn, was abolished when the last Grand Duke, was deposed; but those of [Rome ;and^|Taplte» still floariih; and at this^ moment there .are innumerable Italiani who week, after week carry money to the loto offices in the. hope of winning a fortune. This mania is very productive - to the State, for it brings in as. much as £800,000 a year;.but it also serves to feed popular superstition in its most |udicrous and childish forms. The Italian whose mind ■' ;is - 'bent on " ambes," "ternes," "quines" is for ever on the look-out for .portents. He carries a little book which purports to furnish a key to ill the ordinary incidents which chequer !1ife,,,,. For instance, if going out in the morning the first thing you. see is a cab, count the number of people'inside, look at the number on the box, watch whether the vehicle takes' the first turning to the Hght or the left, and if it stops at a house observe 'the .number over the door; for here you have a 'series of omens which, separately or in the aggregate, may guide your choice in the purchase of a lottery ticket. If a man begins his day with three, sneezes, receives three letters by the^ post, is dunned for three life, and goes'to a cafe, where be finds three waiters or three customers sitting at the table next hisj he will be sure to conclude that .this, repetition of the number three in one day indicates that he ' should speculate, on a terna; and he will take care that the numbers of the tickets he buys be divisible by three. Similarly with i other figures, but especially with those from one to five inclusive, for these compose the quine, and no more than five {number's come out on each drawing day. jThe smallest sum that may be invested on one ticket, or series of tickets is 2id, the largest £80. If a buyer speculates on a single ticket he may win five times his stake: an ambe (two tickets whose numbers must both jcome put) will yield him thirty-three times 'his stakes; and if he goes on a terna bemay win two hundred or four hundred I times his atake, according as he chooses ,the simple terna or the terna major. The .simple terna is equivalent to, betting that three particular numbers will be drawn ; ,the terna major consists in betting that . three numbers will come out in a certain order. There is the same difference be- ! tween the two as there is in turf betting between backing, three horses for places ; and betting that three horses will come in , first', second, and third respectively. Of course, in quarterns and quains, the risks being much larger, the gains. are pro* portionately increased, so that when a buyer tries for a quina major the office' gives him the magnificent odds of 1050 to 1. Thus to win £84,400 the Padre Salvator must have bought fife tickets and staked £30 that their numbers would be drawn in a specified order; If all five numbers had come oat, but in a different order to which he had named, he would have won nothing.. Truly he must be an adventurous clergyman,' with plenty of money to spare; for truly this is "plunging," with a vengeance. - . , Perhaps the padre had dreamed the numbers of his quina; and this would account for his high play. Some years ago there was,a major-domo at one of the thief hotels in Borne, who was not only a Asiatic of. the lottery on his own account, but used to recommend it to all the English families who- sojourned in the house. This man having dreamed that he had won a „terna, remembered the numbers when he awoke, and proceeded to back them for a" napoleon, week after week from that day. He did this for twenty-one years and four months without winning a single paul; but at last,'a small legacy having come to .him, he ventured to lay £40, and won the same week, his long-expected terna bringing him £16,000. It would ■ have been useless to try and ar^ue such a person out qf his belief in dreams; and indeed all words are wasted upon an Italian who mixes superstition with his gambling. * It is a most curious sight to watch the weekly drawings of the lottery on the Piazza Colpnna at Borne. An excited crowd, among which numerous old women are to be seen, throngs round the steps of the municipal office. The ceremony takes place on a balcony in the presence of several officials ; but the drawing is performed by boyfl, from-an orphan school. One turns the windlass of a large wooden i whirlgig; another, who is blind-folded, wills out the tickets . one by one ; and as ea ch comes out it is to be proclaimed in a louii voice, after which it is posted on a notice board; which is lowered by and by, so that the public may read for themselves. Jn the days of the temporal power at Uome and of the Bourbons at Naples it was seldom that large winnings were paid whoJJj in money—land, works of art, or houses being sometimes thrown in at fancy prices; but nowadays the Government levies au ad valorem tax, which amounts to 10 per cent, for winnings above £4000, and pays, the rest immediately at sight of the ticket. It is nol probable that lotteries will be ' suffered to continue long in Italy, for they •are unquestionably conducive to the demoralisation of all who take part in them; but they are so popular that their abolition will not be effected witholit difficulty. They exist in Spain as well as in Italy;. and to some extent in France.also; for, not reckoning the municipal loans of the t 7ity of Paris, which, with their quarterly t, rages and prizes of £5,000, are lotteries

in a way, there are occasional lotteries authorised by the State for charitable purposes. Under the Empire more than a dozen of these were licensed, and two of them—those of the Golden Nugget and of St Point—were particularly successful. That of St. Point was organised for the purpose of buying back for the poet Lamartine his estate of St. Point, which he had been obliged to ke\l after his ruin. We forget for what object the '" Loterie de l'lngot dOr " was started ; but it led to a very curious result. The winner of the big ".nugget" worth £18,000, was a humble vine-dresser of Burgundy, who at once bestowed £2000 as a thank-offering in building a new church for his village* Then he set off to Paris to enjoy himself with his wife two daughters and three sons, At the end of the year these good people had run through every centime of N their fortune; and on returning to his village the vine-dresser was happy to accept the post of sexton and beadle at the church which his pious munificence liad reared.—Pall Mall Gazette.. '