One cannot help being impressed also by the prevalence of coffee-drinking stands and stores--especially if he meets many friends. These friends will insist upon taking him into a coffee stand and engaging him in conversation while they sip coffee. On many corners are little round or octagonal pagoda-like structures in which coffee and cakes are sold. The coffee-drinking places are everywhere and most of them are usually filled. The practice of taking coffee with one's friends must lessen materially the amount of strong drink consumed by the Brazilian. Nevertheless, that amount of strong drink is, alas, altogether too great. The greatest nuisance on the streets of Rio, or any other city of Brazil, is the lottery ticket seller. These venders are more numerous and more insistent than are the newsboys in the United States. There are all sorts of superstitions about lotteries. Certain images in one's dreams at night are said to correspond to certain lucky numbers. Dogs, cats, horses, cows and many other animals have certain numbers corresponding to them. For instance, if one should dream tonight about a dog, he would try tomorrow to find a lottery ticket to correspond in number with a dog. Say the dog number was thirty-seven. This man would try to find a ticket whose number ends in thirty-seven. Such a ticket would be considered lucky. The ticket sellers often call out as they pass along the street the last two numbers on the tickets they have to sell, and if a man hears the number called which corresponds to the animal he dreamed about last night, he will consider it lucky and buy. There are also many shops where only lottery tickets are sold. No evil has more tenaciously and universally fastened upon the people than has the evil of gambling in lotteries. There are 310 Federal lotteries, besides many others run by the various States. These 310 lotteries receive in premiums the enormous sum of $19,399,200 every month--about one dollar for every individual in Brazil. A portion of the profits amassed by the lottery companies is devoted to charity, a portion to Roman Catholic churches and a portion goes to the government. Even after these amounts are taken out, there is ample left for the enrichment of the companies' coffers to the impoverishment of many very needy working people.