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 I care not what, you wish
to stake your money on the arithmetical signification of the occurrence.
You will have no difficulty in discovering a lottery-office; in well nigh
every street there are one or more "Prenditoria di Lotti.
Pages:
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117