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LOTTERIES OF EUROPE The Way French and Italian State Drawings Are Handled. PRIZES PICKED IN PUBLIC. Officials Who Preside at the Selection of the Lucky Numbers—The Differ ence Between the French Bond Scheme and the Italian Lotto. A year or two ago a Manchester pub lican, although he hfeard that a city of Paris bond which he possessed had won £2.000, was so skeptical of the genuineness of French government lotteries that he refused to believe he could receive the money, even when a check for the amount cam# to hand. At last he was persuaded to cash the check. Accompanied by a few friends, who were going to get the money "or know why." he set out for Paris. They invaded the Hotel de Ville and came awi.y gaping with astonishment because the check was cashed the mo ment ho handed it in. The French state lotteries are worked on a system which, while put ting fortunes into the pockets of lucky individuals, * enables the country to raise leans when required. Each stock or bond, besides earning a small rate of Interest, entitles the holder to par ticipate in a series of drawings for prizes, ranging In value from a sov ereign to several thousand pounds. The bonds range from 16 shillings to £6O and, being made payable to bearer, can be turned into ready money very easily. The drawings for prizes must, ac cording to law, take place in public, and no one, whether a bondholder or not, can be refused admittance to the Credit Foncier, where the drawing takes place. At every drawing the governor of the bank and other high officers are present, whose duty it is to superintend the whole proceedings. At the commencement one of them reads out a list of big prizes to be drawn for, and also states the num ber of bonds which are to be redeemed at par. Each number is drawn by a boy from a revolving wheel or drum, varying in height from four to eight feet, accord ing to the number of persons partici pating in the lottery. This boy is usu ally obtained from a neighboring or phanage or similar institution, and the sum of 10 francs is placed to his credit in his savings bank book as payment for his services. Before inserting his hand in the aperture the boy faces the audience with his hand in the air, fin gers outspread, and his arm bare to Vue elbow, to show fhat he is conceal ing nothing before making the draw. As he draws each little scroll from the wheel of fortune the presiding of ficer takes off the copper covering and reads out the lucky number, afterward passing it round to members of the press for verification. And so the drawing goes on until the whole of the prize winning numbers have been drawn. After this the drawing of those bonds which are to be repaid at i par takes place, the boy drawing them from the wheel in handfuls and empty- j ing them into a crystal bowl. From the latter they are taken, sorted out, counted and entered by clerks. The Italian state lottery, or lotto, as It Is called, Is conducted on somewhat different lines. Each week, at eight of the principal cities in Italy, five num bers are publicly drawn from the num bers one to ninety. People have in the meantime been busy taking tickets for the lotto, on which are specified the numbers on which they are playing. If any two numbers selected by a player appear among the five drawn, he receives fifty-two and a half times his stake; if three numbers appear, 4,250 times his stake, and if four num bers, 60,000 times his stake. The low est stake is 12 centesimi, equal to about ' 1 penny of our coinage. Seeing, however, that there are 4,005 combinations of two in ninety numbers, . 117,480 combinations of three and no fewer than 2,555,190 com binations of four, it is obvious that the odds are very heavy against winning. In spite of this, however, the lottery is very popular, as may be judged from the fact that on an average the Italian government draws £2,500,000 every year from this source. In their selection of numbers the Italian gamblers are guided to a very great extent by dreams and for no people are more superstitious. Dream books are largely published and bought, while any untoward event Is looked upon as furnishing a clew to lucky numbers. Some time ago, for instance, a seri ous accident occurred at Genoa. Two horses bolted, fell headlong from an elevated piazza into a street below and were killed, a lamp post being up set In theis fall. Immediately those who witnessed the tragedy decided to fclay the following numbers: Two (number of the horses), five (equivalent of horse), ninety (meaning accident) and sixteen and forty (the number painted on the lamp post which was upset). By a curious fluke every one of the numbers came out, and over 6,000,000 lira— £232,ooo— was won. In Austria and Germany, toe, gov ernment lotteries are flourishing bi gtltutions. What it kxoirm as the Boyal Prussian lottery monthly drawings, and the number of tickets disposed of for each event is close on SStyOOO. Owing to tfcetr high prfee, how eve T, these are seMtons IwM la thefr integrity, and tickets fbr small frse* tIoQS of each are issued. Never during s jrbele century 1m» the Wte an undivided ticket wo* tfcs great though thousands ftsre wnn ferfai&sS Seeing possessors otf flftyy oi wtfr Hg numbers. —Lcedod xiMßlts. AN OPTICAL DELUSION. The Story of a Martinet Colonel, a. Captain and a Sword. The colonel, a. rigid martinet, is sit ting at the window of his room when, looking out, he sees a captain crossing the barrack yard toward the gate. Looking at him closely, he is shocked to observe that, the rules and regula tions to the contrary notwithstanding, the captain does not carry a sword. "Captain!'' he calls from the window. "Hi, captain, step up to my room for a moment, will you?" The captain obeys promptly, borrows a sword of the officer of the guard, the guardroom being at the foot of the itairs, and presents himself to the colo nel in irreproachable dress. The colonel is somewhat surprised to see the sword in its place and, having to invent some pretext for calling his subordinate back, says, with some con fusion: "Beg your pardon, captain, but really I've forgotten what it was I wanted to speak to you about. How ever, it can't have been very impor tant. It'll keep. Good morning." The captain salutes, departs, returns the sword to its owner and is making off across the barrack yard, where he again comes within range of the colo nel's vision. The colonel rubs his eyes, stares, says softly to himself: in thun der is this? He hasn't a sword to his waist!" then calls aloud: "Captain! Ho, captain! One moment, please!" The captain returns, borrows the sword again, mounts the stairs and en ters the colonel's presence. His com manding officer stares at him intently. He has a sword; he sees it; he hears It clank. "Captain," he stammers, growing very hot, "it's ridiculous, you know, but— ha! ha!—l'd just remembered what I wanted to say to you, and now —ha! ha!—it's gone out of my head again! Funny, isn't it? Ha, ha, ha! Losing my memory. Never mind. I'll think of it and write you. Good morn ing." The captain salutes, departs, returns the sword to its owner and makes for the gate. As he crosses the barrack yard the colonel calls his wife to his side and says, "See that officer out there?" "Yes." "Has he got a sword on?" The colonel's wife adjusts her eye glass upon him, scans him keenly and , says, "He hasn't a taste of a sword." ' The colonel: "That's just where you fool yourself. Yes, he has."— LondoD Graphic. THE PICTURE CRITIC. j If He Doesn't "Quite Like the Face," That Settles It. Some liberal minded people, will ad mit 1 to you that a * slight preliminary training is required before a serious attempt is made to criticise music, but almost anybody with eyes is willing to embark buoyantly ou the job of tear ing a picture to pieces. This seems to be because the picture will stand with out hitching. Moreover, it will patient ly submit to all the verbal harpoons you find time and strength to throw, and the average friendly critic will find sufficient of both to make even a reasonably good painting look like a cross between a fourteenth century St. Sebastian and a hedgehog. Music, on the contrary, is both pro longed and evanescent, and by the j time the composition is finished and : the applause has quieted down the j critic has forgotten most of the good ! things he intended to say to its detri ment. But the picture stays, irritating you by its mere passive endurance to the point where after awhile you feel that if you don't say something to destroy its smug self complacency it will go on thinking that it's all right. So then you begin to work over it, and you say: "Yes, I see now. It looked pretty good at first, but that arm is hopelessly bad, and I don't quite like the face." There's nothing to be done if you don't "quite like the face;" there's no answer to that propo sition. It's a clincher. Rembrandt himself would have wilted and would probably have given up trying to be an "old master."—Everybody's. The Word "Ale." What could be more English that j the word ale? It carries us back to the banquets of our dead ancestors in Wal halla, and some of its compounds open up vistas into that old England which is fast disappearing, becoming a tale that is told, obsolete itself. Such are alebush, a tavern sign; ale conner, "an officer appointed in every court leet and sworn to look to the assize and goodness of bread, ale and beer." Ale cost, the name of a kind of tansy used to flavor the rustic's home brewed, has a good old English look. Yet it bears witness to the mongrel nature of the speech of this mongrel nation, cost be ing from the Greek kostos, a savory herb of species unidentified. Alegar is eager or sour ale, used as vinegar.- Cornhill Magazine. • Wellington and Waterloo. Heine, in speaking of good luck at Waterloo, says: "This man has the bad fortune to meet with good fortune when the greatest man of the world is unfortunate. We see in him the victory of stupidity over genius —Arthur Wellington triumphant when Napoleon Bonaparte was overwhelmed. Wellington and Napoleon! It Is a iron flerfnl phenomenon that the human mind can at the same time think of Ml thee* mmee." Ne Chanee. •9* yen fhtek his interest in art wfl! «rcr amount t» anything? 0 "Ws" amrwtred Miss Cayenne "flt fir (M weft e£ te beeeme an srttsl Mm flrif aad not rich enough H beeeme i cetiustessnr."— Washington Stan. The Rocky Mount Record, Thursday, April 16, 1908. CARD GAMES. The Earliest Played In England Were Imported From Spain. Spain is generally believed to have sent us our first card games. "El hom bre," or "the man," corrupted by us Into "ombre," was probably our earli est card game in England, and that must have come from Spain. Also the oldest packs of cards found in England •how Spanish symbols, such as cupus, maces and swords. Another popular English card game in the sixteenth century was trump, clearly a form of the Spanish game triumfo. Cards could be bought in 1545 for twopence a pack. These were very wretched specimens and most inferior to those produced by the Cardmakers' company of London, in which Charles I. created a monopoly, with the finan cial genius of his race, by buying then: up cheap and selling them at a high price. In this he was a more open rogue perhaps than his father, who j forbade card playing in Scotland and indulged in it himself at every oppor tunity. Cards have always been a royal game. Queen Elizabeth played cards and lost her temper over them fre quently. She was no Anne of Austria, to play "like a queen without passion of greed or gain." In her reign was commanded to be played "at Wynd sore a Comedie or Morral devised on a game of the cardes," which resulted in j the performance by the children of her majesty's chapel of "Alexander and | Campaspe," in which the pretty lines I occur: Cupid and Campaspe played At cards for kisses. Cupid paid. —London Chronicle. LEARNING TO SHOOT. j A Simple Rifle Target and the Way tc Practice. The first moving target that I would recommend is one that is simplicity it self and yet, with the assistance of a gentle sloping hill and a friend to take turns with you, will be of great value and benefit. One of the lapst success ful deer hunters I know trained this way, and you will readily see the good points of this practice on trial of it Secure half a dozen barrel heads for your partner. Have him take a posi tion at the top of the hill and roll these 1 heads down the slope diagonally. At ! first it will be best to select a fairly smooth slope and have the targets roll ed down at a medium rate. At fifty to seventy "ve yards take your posi tion, according to your gun and am . munition. If it is a 22, a somewhat ! smaller target might be used at a little shorter distance. At your signal one of these targets is started on its jour-, As It starts bring the gun to the shoulder, taking aim and swinging with the moving object. Always aim to hit the center of the object. You will find that the eye naturally seeks the center, just as it is nature for one to see the front sight through the cen ter of the peep. Do not attempt to hold your gun at a point the target will pass and try to pull the trigger while it passes, but pull when the aim has been secured, just as when firing at a stationary object—Outer's Book. Where the "Brave" Excelled. Bloodthirsty, vindictive, treacherous, crafty, scornful of suffering, brave un to death when at bay, more cunning than the fox and of infinite patience on the trail, the Indian has proved more than a match for the whites in the jungle. It is certain that more whites than savages have perished in forest fighting. But in a set battle the red man is without steadfastness and perseverance. The least reverse dis heartens him. After the first mad rush his purpose wanes, and the slightest check is apt to dispirit his capricious mind.—Lynn Tew Sprague in Outing Magazine. His Ancestors. An Irish gentleman was recently at tended by an eminent London physi cian, who, pausing and looking at him with an inquiring glance, said: "I should like to know, sir, if your family have been long lived?" "Long lived, is it?" responded the patient thoughtfully. "Well, doctor. I'll just tell you how it Is. Our family Is a west of Ireland family, and tho age of my ancestors depended entirely on the judge and jury who tried them." —Strand Magazine. Embarrassing. Bobson—You look all broken up, old man. "What's the matter? Cralk—l called on Miss Truyn last night, and no sooner had I entered the parlor than her mother appeared and demanded to know my intentions. "That jnust have been rather embar rassing." "Yes, but that was not the worst Just as the old lady finished speaking Miss Pruyn shouted down the stairs, "Mamma, mamma, he isn't the onef London Tit-Bits. Significant Silence. "What has become of your son, the young inventor, who used to advance such startling theories?" asked a friendly man of an old negro known to the Washington Star. "I never hear of Mm any more." "No, aah," replied the shrewd father, "he's.relly inventing something now." ■* One 1 ] Better. First Child—Our baby can pay "Papa.** Second GUM (with lofty eo peiflM^y)—©nr parrot can say "papal* and gftpte* swear words toor-lio* Am gskelEcraM. Kxeeutlve Ability. ZJfQe Jamee— Father, what Is execu tive ability? His father— The faculty bt earning jonr bread hr the Sweat ef wttim people** btowa, my eon. [Subscribe To The .A • i Rocky | Mount j Record I An 8 Page Home Paper! I I j Devoted to the interests]! of r "... . ' •-• *HNash and Edgecombe counties ; ; 1 and surrounding territory. . . I.r N | P- i - ' 4 | Carries More Reading Matter j Than any other paper publish- ; ; •' ~ ' 3 ed in this section, including . l t ' 4 r '-' " 1 " • • Local, State and Gen-1 ! . _ | i eral News Items ot In- j y ' i terest to Readers . . . J ? . • ' * k « P 4 | Price: - - sl.oo| Per Year •• g » i i : \.■ V . : P - —" I j Published Every Thursday Morn-; | ing at Rocky Mount, N. C
The Rocky Mount Record (Rocky Mount, N.C.)
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April 16, 1908, edition 1
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