all. But whenever more than one chance is played for, the
price is proportionally increased. For a simple _terno_ the limit of
price is thirty-five pauls. The ordinary rule is to play for every
chance within the numbers taken; but the common people rarely attempt
more than a _terno_. If four numbers are played with all their chances,
they are reckoned as four _terni_, and paid for accordingly. If five
numbers are taken, the price is for five _terni_.

Where two numbers are played, there is always an augment to the nominal
prize of twenty per cent.; where three numbers are played, the augment
is of eighty per cent.; and from every prize is deducted ten per cent.,
to be devoted to the hospitals and the poor. The rule creating the
augments was decreed by Innocent XIII. Such is the rage for the lottery
in Rome, as well as in all the Italian States, and so great is the
number of tickets bought within the year, that this tax on the prizes
brings in a very considerable revenue for eleemosynary purposes.

The lottery is a branch of the department of finance, and is under the
direction of a Monsignore. The tickets originally issue from one grand
central office in the Palazzo Madama; but there is scarcely a street in
Rome without some subsidiary and distributing office, which is easily
recognized, not only by its great sign of "_Prenditoria di Lotti_" over
the door, but by scores of boards set round the windows and doorway, on
which are displayed, in large figures, hundreds of combinations of
numbers for sale. The tickets sold here are merely purchased on
speculation for resale, and though it is rare that all are sold, yet, as
a small advance of price is asked on each ticket beyond what was given
at the original office, there is enough profit to support these shops.
The large show of placards would to a stranger indicate a very
considerable investment; yet, in point of fact, as the tickets rarely
cost more than a few _baioicchi_, the amount risked is small. No ticket
is available for a prize, unless it bear the stamp and signature of the
central office, as well as of the distributing shop, if bought in the
latter.

Every Saturday, at noon, the lottery is drawn in Rome, in the Piazza
Madama. Half an hour before the appointed time, the Piazza begins to be
thronged with ticket-holders, who eagerly watch a large balcony of the
sombre old Palazzo Madama, (built by the infamous Catharine de' Medici,)
where the drawing is to take plac