s. Domitian
compelled the senators and knights to participate in the lotteries, in
order to debase them; and Heliogabalus, in his fantastic festivities,
distributed tickets which entitled the bearers to camels, flies, and
other odd things suggested by his madness. In all this, however, the
distinctive character of modern lotteries was totally absent: the
tickets were always gratuitous; so that if the people did not win
anything, they never lost.

In the Middle Ages the same practice prevailed at the banquets of feudal
princes, who apportioned their presents economically, and without the
fear of exciting jealousy among the recipients, by granting lottery
tickets indiscriminately to their friends. The practice afterwards
descended to the merchants; and in Italy, during the 16th century, it
became a favourite mode of disposing of their wares.

The application of lotteries by paid tickets to the service of the state
is said to have originated at Florence, under the name of 'Lotto,' in
1530; others say at Genoa, under the following circumstances:--It had
long been customary in the latter city to choose annually, by ballot,
five members of the Senate (composed of 90 persons) in order to form a
particular council. Some persons took this opportunity of laying bets
that the lot would fall on such or such senators. The government, seeing
with what eagerness the people interested themselves in these bets,
conceived the idea of establishing a lottery on the same principle,
which was attended with such great success, that all the cities of Italy
wished to participate in it, and sent large sums of money to Genoa for
that purpose.

To increase the revenues of the Church, the Pope also was induced to
establish a lottery at Rome; the inhabitants of which place became so
fond of this species of gambling, that they often deprived themselves
and their families of the necessaries of life, that they might have
money to lay out in this speculation.

The French borrowed the idea from the Italians. In the year 1520,
under Francis I., lotteries were permitted by edict under the name of
_Blanques_, from the Italian _bianca carta_, 'white tickets,'-- because
all the losing tickets were considered _BLANKS;_--hence the introduction
of the word into common talk, with a similar meaning. From the year 1539
the state derived a revenue from the lotteries, although from 1563 to
1609 the French parliament repeatedly endeavoured to suppress them as
soc