will come down man or woman, and the law of chances cannot be regulated by a motu proprio.  It is possible, though not probable, that on any one occasion the majority of the gamblers might stake their money fortuitously on one series of numbers, and if that series did happen to be drawn, then the loss to the Lottery, even with all deductions, would be a heavy one, and the Roman exchequer is by no means in a position to bear a heavy drain.  In consequence, measures are taken to avert this calamity; each office reports daily what sums have been staked on what numbers; and, if any numbers are regarded with undue partiality, orders are issued from the head department to receive no more money on these numbers or series.  I have assumed all along that the numbers are drawn fairly, and, without a very high opinion of the integrity of our Papal rulers, I am disposed to think they are.  In the first place, any general impression of unfairness would greatly damage the future profits of the speculation; and, secondly, by the usual rule of averages it will be found that, on the whole, people stake pretty equally on one combination as another, and therefore the question, which particular numbers are drawn, is of less practical importance to the lottery management than might at first be supposed.  In spite, however, of these abstract considerations, the virtue of the Papal Lotteries, unlike that of Caesar’s wife, is not above suspicion; and I have often heard Romans remark, that the only possible explanation of there being one blank day between the closing the lottery-offices and the drawing was the obvious one, that time was required to calculate, from the state of the stakes, what combination of winning numbers will be most beneficial, or least hurtful, to the Papal pockets.

Whatever mathematicians may assert, your regular gamblers always believe in luck, and therefore it is not surprising that a nation, whose great excitement is the lottery, should be devout worshippers of the blind goddess.  It may be that some memories of the Pythagorean doctrines still exist in the land of their birth, but be the cause what it may, it is certain that in the southern Peninsula a belief in the symbolism of numbers is a received article of faith.  Every thing, name, or event, has its numerical interpretation.  Suppose, for instance, a robbery occurs; forthwith the numbers or sequences of numbers corresponding to the name of the robber or the robbed, the day or hour of the crime, the articles stolen, or a dozen other coincident circumstances, are eagerly sought after and staked upon in the ensuing lottery.  Then there are the numeri simpatici, or the numbers in each month or year which are supposed to be fortunate, and lists of which are published in the popular almanacs.  The “sympathetic number for instance for the month of March is 88,” why or wherefore I have never been able to discover.  Let me assume now, that having dreamt a dream, or heard of a death, or