's, that, "if the last trump
were to sound, they would bet puppet-show against judgment." Let one
instance suffice. A man, happening to drop down at the door of White's,
was lifted up and carried in. He was insensible, and the question was,
whether he were dead or not. Bets were at once given and taken on both
sides, and, it being proposed to bleed him, those who had taken odds
that he was dead protested, on the ground that the use of the lancet
would affect the fairness of the bet.[B] In the matter of play, things
have now much changed since the time when Mr. Thynne left the club at
White's in disgust, because he had won only twelve hundred guineas in
two months. There is also a description of one of Fox's mornings, about
the year 1783, which Horace Walpole has left us, and the truth of which
Lord Holland admits, which it would be well for those to read who
measure out hard justice to the Italians for their love of the lottery.
Let us be fair. Italy is in these respects behind England in morals and
practice by nearly a century; but it is as idle to argue
hard-heartedness in an Italian who counts the drops of blood at a
beheading as to suppose that the English have no feeling because in the
bet we have mentioned there was a protest against the use of the lancet,
or to deny kindliness to a surgeon who lectures on structure and disease
while he removes a cancer.

Vehement protests against the lottery and all gaming are as often
uttered in Italy as elsewhere; and among them may be cited this eloquent
passage from one of the most powerful of her modern writers. Guerrazzi,
in the thirteenth chapter of "L'Assedio di Firenze," speaking on this
subject, says, "You would in vain seek anything more fatal to men than
play. It brings ignorance, poverty, despair, and at last crime....
Gambling (the wicked gambling of the lottery) forms a precious jewel in
the crown of princes."

In a recent work, by the same author, called "L'Asino," occurs the
following indignant and satirical passage, which, for the sake of the
story, if for no other reason, deserves a place here:--

"In our search for the history of human perfection, shall I speak of
Naples or Rome? Alas! At the contemplation of such misery, in vain you
constrain your lips to smile; they pout, and the uncalled tears stream
over your face. Pity, in these most unhappy countries, blinded with
weeping and hoarse with vain supplication, when she has no more voice to
cry out to heav