certain numbers which everybody wanted to
have at once; the ages of both the lovers, the
number of the house, and the hour of their death.

At Venice, an Austrian soldier threw himself
from the top of a steeple. The mob closed
round him as soon as he touched the ground;
they tore off the number of his regiment and of
his battalion; they plunged their greedy hands
into his bloody linen to find the number of his
shirt. There was not a man amongst them who
did not regard the corpse as a sort of godsend
from the sky.

At Rimini, a condemned man was walking to
meet his fate between two executioners. An
old woman heroically followed him through the
crowd. She spoke to him from time to time, and
when she could not get near enough telegraphed
to him a grimace of entreaty. Was she his
mother? Not a bit of it. She was a female
gambler begging for numbers.

At Sonnino, while it still continued the custom
to enclose decapitated heads in iron cages around
the gate of the village, old women, devotees of
the lottery, used to come at midnight to pray
before those hideous remains. They prayed,
but with their ear alert and their mind attentive
to every sound. The crowing of a cock, the
mewing of a cat, the barking of a dog, the
distant rumbling of a cart, were noted by these
sorceresses as so many intimations from heaven.
Exactly thus the soothsayers of antiquity
interrogated the will of the gods in the open-air
observatory, which they called a temple.

There is nothing surprising in finding prayers
and gambling thus jumbled together. Religion
interferes with every act of life. The Romans,
in the familiar commerce which they hold with
the Divinity, think it very simple and natural
to try to interest him in their little affairs. A
respectable ecclesiastic stated that his
parishioners offered him large sums to place three
numbers under the cibarium during the sacrifice
of the mass. No reasoning could persuade them
that such hocus-pocus work would be a sacrilege,
and no living creature can make them doubt that
numbers so recommended to Providence would
fail to come out at the very next drawing.

The inscriptions on the lottery-offices are
amusing. One assures you that the game is
played honestly, which is true. Another
announces that the winner shall be paid without
delay; another, that he may ask for what coin he
chooses. In the midst of these promises, a distich
of good augury occupies the place of honour:
With trifling capital, large fortunes may be made;
Buy tickets: the Madonna, may she come to your aid.

A village innkeeper endeavoured to convert
a young Englishman thus: " But, ass that you
are, don't you see that the sky, the earth, yourself,
your clothes, the bread you eat, all come from the
Madonna? It was she who made the world, and
you must be more stupid than the beasts of the
field not to know that such is the case!"

If infidelity ever reign in the land, it may
perhaps deny the Deity; but it will continue to
burn tapers before the Madonna. When a man
is at the point of death, they say, " He is going
soon to see the Madonna." All sick people
who sink under their complaints are the victims
of " that donkey of a doctor;" all who recover
are indebted to no one but the Madonna.
They haggle about, the price of a medical
man's visit, but they make no spare of wax-
lights before the Madonna of Saint Augustin.
She is more venerated than any other in
the city. Her statue is crushed under the
weight of jewellery; she has caskets which a
queen might envy. It is said that a great
lady having made her the offering of all her
diamonds without consulting her husband, the
husband had the meanness to complain to the
Pope. Nothing less than a fortune was in
question. The Pope authorised the complainant
to take back his property, on the express condition
that he should go and fetch it himself, one
Sunday, as the congregation was coming out
from mass. The diamonds remain there still.

The Ghetto, or quarter of the Jews, is just as
filthy as ever. The windows open to let fall
horrible things. In the Catholic city, the rain
washes the streets, the sun dries the dirt, and
the wind sweeps away the dust; but neither
rain, nor wind, nor sun, can cleanse the Ghetto;
nothing short of a fire or an inundation can
purify it. The population is thick enough
to compose a tribe. According to the last
census, there are 4196 Hebrews in this valley of
mire. They live in the street—standing, sitting,
lying, in the midst of rags; you are obliged to
keep a sharp look-out to avoid committing
infanticide at every step. The type is ugly, the
complexion livid, the physiognomy degraded by
wretchedness. Nevertheless, these unfortunates
are intelligent, apt in business, easy to
deal with, and irreproachable in their morals.

The existence of a colony of Jews within a
few paces of the Apostolic seat is a curious
anomaly. It would be still more curious if it
had prospered. But it does not prosper; the
Ghetto is poor, and will always be poor: for this
reason. A Jew can neither be a landowner, nor a
farmer, nor a manufacturer. He can sell goods,
new or second-hand. He is allowed to mend
old things, to convert them into new; but he
would violate the law were he to fabricate a
chair, a waistcoat, or a pair of shoes. Restricted
thus to buying and selling, the Jews sometimes
manage to make a fortune; but they
immediately emigrate to milder laws and less
contemptuous neighbours. They transport their
worldlv goods to Leghorn, and in proportion as
individuals get rich, the Ghetto becomes
impoverished. Since 1847, the gates of the
Ghetto exist no longer, and no visible barrier
separates the Jews from the Christians. They are
authorised by law, if not by custom, to lodge in
the city wherever they please. Some of them
complain that the landlords of the fashionable
quarters either will not or dare not have them
for tenants; they grumble at being obliged to
give back in secret the privileges that were
publicly granted to them. The sagest in Israel
take things philosophically, enjoying their half-
gratuitous rental, their moderate taxes, and the