Handsome peasant-girls in gay holiday attire, saturnine, calculating priests, laughing milliners' apprentices, sturdy fishermen, tattered women, beggars in every stage of misery—here are groups that a painter would long to delineate, for, discernible upon all, stamped as if with nature's signet, is the impress of beauty and of race.
The clear wintry sun shines on those upturned heads, and the blue unclouded sky forms a brilliant background to features of so much fire and animation, such coal-black kindling eyes, and figures of so much artistic outline and perfection, that the very originals of some of Raphael's master-pieces seem again presented to our view, and we recognise faces whose lineaments are familiar to us in the Sacrifice at Lystra, or the Preaching at Athens.
As the game wears on, when nearly ninety numbers have been called out, and the result yet remains undecided, the thrill of agitation preceding each successive, announcement,—the sudden silence, as if every one held his breath to catch the first sound on which his fate might hang,—is very remarkable and suggestive.
It is a grand spectacle of gambling, openly countenanced, nay more, encouraged by the Government, which sees not that in thus feeding the love of hazard and thirst for excitement in its subjects, it is but arming them with weapons that sooner or later will be employed to its own destruction.
But in their short-sighted policy, the Roman rulers discern nought but the expediency of furnishing the people with amusement, and turning their thoughts from politics. And when the diversions of the afternoon are ended, when the crowd disperses, as only an Italian crowd can disperse, without shrieks, or jostling, or rough-usage, while a murmur of animated voices diffuses itself through the streets,—no watchful eye seems to penetrate through this fair surface, no warning voice denounces what poison lurks in the anodyne which has been administered that day.
The Lottery—Its miserable results—Evening parties—Absence of all ostentation—Poverty no crime—Grand supper on Shrove Tuesday—Reception of a Cardinal.
The national taste for gambling—so strikingly illustrated to the most casual observer in the excitement produced by the tombola—is still more perniciously fostered by the system of the government lottery, the existence of which produces the most baneful influence upon the country. As in the tombola, the numbers range from one to ninety, of which five are drawn every week at Rome. What is termed playing in the lottery, consists in staking sums, varying in amount at the pleasure of the player, upon one or more numbers, which, if they come up, yield prizes proportionate to the sum hazarded and the manner of the venture. For instance, if a person decides upon three numbers—say 19, 27, 60—and plays upon what is called the _terno secco_, he receives no profit unless all three are drawn; but then, in case he is successful, his gain is infinitely more considerable than if he had stipulated for a prize should only two of his numbers appear. A _quinterno_—that is, for five numbers played on the same ticket to come up together—is very rare; yet there are not wanting instances of this extraordinary good-fortune, which are eagerly remembered, and have been fatal lures to many an infatuated player.