l stronger. The habit of gambling engendered by it
ruins the temper, depraves the morals, and keeps up a constant state of
excitement at variance with any settled and serious occupation. The
temptations to laziness which it offers are too great for any people
luxurious or idle by temperament; and the demon of Luck is set upon the
altar which should be dedicated to Industry. If one happy chance can
bring a fortune, who will spend laborious days to gain a competence? The
common classes in Rome are those who are most corrupted by the lottery;
and when they can neither earn nor borrow _baiocchi_ to play, they
strive to obtain them by beggary, cheating, and sometimes theft. The
fallacious hope that their ticket will some day bring a prize leads them
from step to step, until, having emptied their purses, they are tempted
to raise the necessary funds by any unjustifiable means. When you pay
them their wages or throw them a _buona-mano_, they instantly run to the
lottery-office to play it. Loss after loss does not discourage them. It
is always, "The next time they are to win,--there was a slight mistake
in their calculation before." Some good reason or other is always at
hand. If by chance one of them do happen to win a large sum, it is ten
to one that it will cost him his life,--that he will fall into a fit, or
drop in an apoplexy, on hearing the news. There is a most melancholy
instance of this in the very next house,--of a Jew made suddenly and
unexpectedly rich, who instantly became insane in consequence, and is
now the most wretched and melancholy spectacle that man can ever
become,--starving in the midst of abundance, and moving like a beast
about his house. But of all ill luck that can happen to the
lottery-gambler, the worst is to win a small prize. It is all over with
him from that time forward; into the great pit of the lottery everything
that he can lay his hands on is sure to go.

There has been some difference of opinion as to whether the lottery was
of later Italian invention, or dated back to the Roman Empire,--some
even contending that it was in existence in Egypt long before that
period; and several ingenious discussions may be found on this subject
in the journals and annals of the French _savans_. A strong claim has
been put forward for the ancient Romans, on the ground that Nero, Titus,
and Heliogabalus were in the habit of writing on bits of wood and shells
the names of various articles which they intended t