which occurs first in dictionaries for these large instruments, is of great antiquity, and has been still retained in the Swedish and Dutch. It appears to have been used for many things which were split or divided into two; at any rate, it is certain that it is not derived from the Latin word gabalus.

LOTTERY. TONTINE.

Ar present there are two kinds of lottery in Europe. One is called the Italian or Genoese lotto, or merely the lotto; the other is the common lottery well known in England. Of the former, which has been long proved to be attended with great deception, and must soon be universally acknowledged to be hurtful, I do not mean here to treat, but only of the latter, which at any rate may be honourable or harmless, if we do not take into account the delusion it occasions to credulous and ignorant people, by exciting hopes which have little probability in their favour. I however do not promise a complete history of this invention: it experienced so many changes before it acquired its present form, that to give a full account of them would be tiresome to me as well as to the reader.

I shall not either, as some have done, reckon among the first traces of lotteries every division of property made by lot, otherwise it might be said, that Joshua partitioned the promised land into lottery-prizes, before it was conquered. In my opinion the peculiarity of lotteries consists in this, that numbers are distributed gratuitously, or, as in our public lotteries, for a certain price, and it is then left to chance to determine what numbers are to obtain the prizes, the value of which is previously settled. The various conditions and changes invented by ingenuity to entice people to purchase shares, and to conceal and increase the gain of the undertakers, are not here taken into consideration, because they do not appear to be essential.

In the whole history of antiquity, I find nothing which has a greater resemblance to our lotteries than the congiaria of

the Romans; and I am inclined to think that the latter fur nished the first hint for the establishment of the former. Rich persons at Rome, as is well known, and particularly the em perors, when they wished to gain or to strengthen the attachment of the people, distributed among them presents, consisting of eatables and other expensive articles, which were named congiaria. In general, tokens or tickets called tessera1 were given out, and the possessors of these, on presenting them at the store or magazine of the donor, received those things which they announced. In many cases these tickets were distributed viritim, that is, to every person who applied for them; and in that case these donations had a resemblance to our distributions of bread, but not to our lotteries, in which chance must determine the number of those who are to participate in the things distributed.

But in the course of time it became customary to call the people together, and to throw among them, from a stage, the articles intended for distribution, in the same manner as money is scattered among the populace at the coronation of the emperor, and on other solemnities. Such things, in this case, were called missilia, and belonged to those who had the good fortune to catch them. But as oil, wine, corn and other articles of the like kind, could not be distributed by throwing them in this manner, and as some articles were so much injured by the too great eagerness of the people, that they could be of little or no use, tokens or tickets were thrown out in their stead. At first these were square pieces of wood or metal, but sometimes also balls of wood inscribed with the name of the article which the possessor was to receive from the magazine2. Like bank-notes they were payable to the 1 And in Greek σύμβολα.

2 Many have written at considerable length on the congiaria, yet the difference between the missilia and tessera has not been sufficiently explained. The first, or at least the best account, is in Turnebi Adversaria, xxix. 9, p. 637. In a passage in the Life of Nero by Suetonius, xi. 11, p. 21, the articles which were thrown among the people are called missilia; but in regard to corn, the term tessera is expressly named.

The passages where a description is given of the manner in which the tessera were thrown out, are to be found in Dio Cassius. The wooden balls, like those of the Lotto, appear to have been hollow, and to have contained the ticket or written order. Those desirous of knowing how these tessera were formed, and of what they were made, may consult Hugo de Prima Scribendi Origine, Traj. 1738, 8vo, cap. 15, p. 229.

bearer; and those who had obtained tessera were allowed to transfer or to sell them to others. This is proved by a passage in Juvenal', where allusion however is made only to the tessera frumentaria, which were not thrown out, but distributed.

Imitations of these Roman congiaria, but indeed on a very reduced scale, have been employed in modern times by princes and princesses, in order to amuse themselves with distributing small presents to their courtiers. For this purpose various trinkets or toys are marked with numbers; these numbers are written upon separate tickets, which are rolled up and put into a small basket or basin. Each of the company then draws one out, and receives as a present the article marked with the same number. These small congiaria were formerly called in German glückstöpfe, or glückshäfen; and in the course of time the present lotteries took their rise from them.

In Italy, where commerce, as is well known, was first formed into a regular system, and where the principal mercantile establishments and useful regulations were invented, the merchants or shopkeepers, even in the middle ages, were accustomed, in order that they might sell their wares in a speedier manner and with more advantage, to convert their shops into a glücksbude, where each person for a small sum of money was allowed to draw a number from the glückstöpfe (jar of fortune), which entitled him to the article written upon it. At first governments gave themselves very little trouble about this mode of selling merchandise. But as the shopkeepers gained excessive profits, and cheated the credulous people by setting on their wares an extravagant price, which was concealed by the blanks, these glückshäfen were forbidden, or permitted only under strict inspection, and in the course of time on paying a certain sum to the poor, or to the sovereign. In Germany they are still retained at many of the annual fairs; but in most countries they are subject to many limitations.

From these glückshäfen were produced our lotteries, when articles of merchandise were no longer employed as prizes, but certain sums of money, the value of which was determined by the amount of the money received, after the expenses and

1 Juven. Sat. vii. 174.

gain required by the undertakers were deducted, and when the tickets were publicly drawn by charity-boys blindfolded. As these lotteries could not be conducted without defrauding the adventurers, it was at first believed, through old-fashioned conscientiousness, that it was unlawful to take advantage of the folly and credulity of the people, but for pious or charitable purposes.

Lotteries were then established by private persons, and in the course of time even by governments; and the clear gain was applied to the purpose of portioning poor young women, of redeeming slaves, of forming funds for the indigent, and to other objects of beneficence. It was also hoped that these public games of hazard would banish other kinds still more dangerous; and no one suspected that the exposing of tickets for sale, and the division of them, so that one could purchase an eighth or even a smaller share, would maintain and diffuse the taste of the public for gambling. This, however, increased; and the profit of lotteries became so great, that princes and ministers were induced to employ them as an operation of finance, and to hold the bank which always enriched the undertakers. People were then forbidden to purchase tickets in foreign lotteries, that the money won from the adventurers might pass into the sovereign's treasury, or at any rate be retained in the country; and in order that tickets might be disposed of sooner and with more certainty, many rulers were so shameless as to pay the salaries of their servants partly in tickets, and to compel guild companies and societies to expend in lotteries what money they had saved'.

Of the oldest lotteries among the Italians I have not been able to find any account. Varchi, who wrote about the year 1537, relates that during a great scarcity of money at Flolence in 1530, a lottery was established for the benefit of the state, and that the price of a ticket was a ducat. He however does not employ the term lottery, but uses the words un lotto, and calls a ticket polizza, a term which, as is well known,

1 This abuse of lotteries was mentioned by the states of Wirtemberg, in the year 1764, among the public grievances; and in 1770 the duke promised that it should be abolished. I must here mention, to the honour of our prince and government (the author alludes to Hanover), that since lotteries were found necessary in this country, not a farthing of the profit has gone to the treasury of the prince, but the whole has been employed for pious or charitable purposes.

VOL. II.

2 E

is generally used in regard to insurance. Le Bret says, that at Venice, in 1572, the inspection of lotteries was entrusted to the proveditori del commune; but as he does not mention the historian from whom this account is borrowed, the word which he translates lottery cannot be known. We nevertheless learn from his account, that this game was established at Venice in the middle of the sixteenth century, and placed under the inspection of the government.

It is certain that the chance game which gave rise to lotteries was brought from Italy to France under the name of blanque, a word formed from the Italian bianca. The greater part of the tickets drawn were always white paper, carta bionca, consequently blanks; and because that word occurred oftenest in drawing, it gave rise to the general appellation. Hence also is derived the phrase trouver blanque, to obtain nothing, to get a blank, or to lose. At the time Pasquier wrote, that is, in the last half of the sixteenth century, the name numero was also usual, because the numbers of the tickets, which were then called devises, were announced in the time of drawing. This name, instead of nombre, confirms the Italian origin. As each person in the time of drawing was attentive to his number, the phrase entendre le numero was applied to those who knew or did not forget their numbers. Hence the expression, as Pasquier remarks, Il entend le numero, which is still said of those who know their own interest, or understand how to pursue it. Frisch and others, therefore, in their dictionaries have derived it improperly from the numbers with which merchants marked their goods.

In France also the first blanques (lotteries) had no other prizes than articles of merchandise; and on that account they were set on foot only by merchants. But in the year 1539 Francis I. endeavoured to turn them to his own advantage by imitating the public establishment of them usual at Venice, Florence, and Genoa. He permitted these games of chance under the inspection of certain members of the government, with a view, as was pretended, of banishing deceptive and pernicious games of chance, on condition that for every ticket, devise or mise, a teston de dix sols six deniers should be given 1 Recherches de la France. Paris, 1665, fol. viii. 49, p. 729.

This word is still used in Germany by the writers on Tontines; such, for example, as Michelsen.