Murray, who knows everything, states that in Rome alone fifty-five millions of lottery-tickets are taken annually.  Now though I would much sooner doubt the infallibility of the Pope than that of the author of the most invaluable of hand-books, I cannot help thinking there is some strange error in this calculation.  The whole population of Rome is under 180,000, and therefore, according to this statement, every living soul in the city, man, woman, priest and child, must, on an average, take one ticket a day, to make up the amount stated.  If, however, without examining the strict arithmetical correctness of this statement, you take it, just as the old Romans used “sex centi” for an indefinite number, as an expression of the fact, that the number of the lottery-tickets taken annually in Rome is quite incredible, you will not be far wrong.  During the year 1858 the receipts of the lottery (by which I suppose are meant the net, not the gross receipts) are officially stated to have been 1,181,000 scudi, or about an eleventh of the whole Pontifical revenue.  It is true the expenses of the Lottery are charged amidst the state expenditure for the year at 788,987 scudi, but then a large portion of this expense is directly repaid to the Government, and the remainder is paid to the lottery-holders, who all have to pay heavily for the privilege of keeping a lottery-office, and who form also the most devoted of the Papal adherents, more especially since the liberal party have set their faces against the lottery.  Common estimation too assigns a far larger profit to the lotteries than Papal returns give it credit for, and, I own that, from the system on which they are conducted, of which I shall speak presently, I suspect the profit must be very much beyond the sum mentioned; anyhow, this source of income is a very important one, and is guarded jealously as a Government monopoly.  Private gambling tables of any kind are rigidly suppressed.  If you want to gamble, you must gamble at the tables and on the terms of the Government.  The very sale of foreign lottery-tickets is, I believe, forbidden.  To this rule there is one exception, and that is in favour of Tuscany.  Between the Grand Ducal and the Papal Governments there long existed an entente cordiale on the subject of lotteries.  There is no bond, cynics say, so powerful as that of common interest; and this saying seems to be justified in the present instance.  Though the Court of Rome is at variance on every point of politics and faith with the present revolutionary Government of Tuscany, yet in matters of money they are not divided; and so the joint lottery-system flourishes, as of old.  The lottery is drawn once a fortnight at Rome, and once every alternate fortnight at Florence or Leghorn; and as far as the speculator is concerned, it makes no difference whether his ticket is drawn for in Rome or in Tuscany, though the gains and losses of each branch are, I understand, kept separate.