y, add this to
your note, that in Rome, _Caput Mundi_, and in Tuscany, Garden of Italy,
it is prohibited, under the severest penalties, to play at _Faro_,
_Zecchinetto_, _Banco-Fallito_, _Rossa e Nera_, and other similar games
at cards, where each party may lose the whole or half the stakes, while
the government encourage the play of the Lottery, by which, out of one
hundred and twenty chances of winning, eighty are reserved for the bank,
and forty or so allowed to the player. Finally, take note that in Rome,
_Caput Mundi_, and in Tuscany, Garden of Italy, _Faro_, _Zecchinetto_,
_Rossa e Nera_ were prohibited, as acknowledged pests of social
existence and open death to honest customs,--as a set-off for which
deprivation, the game of the Lottery is still kept on foot."

The following extraordinary story, improbable as it seems, is founded
upon fact, and was clearly proved, on judicial investigation, a few
years since. It is well known in Tuscany, and forms the subject of a
satirical narrative ("Il Sortilegio") by Giusti, a modern Tuscan poet,
of true fire and genius, who has lashed the vices of his country in
verses remarkable for point, idiom, and power. According to him, the
method of divination resorted to in this case was as follows:--The
sorcerer who invented it ordered his dupes to procure, either at dawn or
twilight, ninety dry beans, called _ceci_, and upon each of these to
write one of the ninety numbers drawn in the lottery, with an ink made
of pitch and lard, which would not be affected by water. They were then
to sharpen a knife, taking care that he who did so should touch no one
during the operation; and after a day of fasting, they were to dig up at
night a body recently dead, and, having cut off the head and removed the
brain, they were to count the beans thrice, and to shake them thrice,
and then, on their knees, to put them one by one into the skull. This
was then to be placed in a caldron of water and set on the fire to boil.
As soon as the water boiled violently, the head would be rolled about so
that some of the beans would be ejected, and the first three which were
thus thrown to the surface would be a sure _terno_ for the lottery. The
wretched dupes added yet another feature of superstition to insure the
success of this horrible device. They selected the head of their curate,
who had recently died,--on the ground that, as he had studied algebra,
he was a great cabalist, and any numbers from his head