There is a public lottery drawn every week in the Plaza Mayor, directly opposite the Cathedral, where a temporary platform is erected for the purpose. A ticket costs an eighth of a dollar, and the highest prize is 1000 dollars. As the hour for drawing approaches, the square begins to fill with a motley crowd of men, women, and children; armed soldiers, shovel-hatted priests, barefoot monks, bright-eyed tapadas (so a Limeña with her manto drawn over her face is called), spurred cavaliers, and ragged negroes. The numbers are placed in the wheels, and drawn out by boys belonging to the foundling hospital. To every ticket is attached a motto, which is usually an invocation to some favorite saint to accord good luck to that ticket; and when the fortunate one is ascertained this motto is read aloud for the edification of the bystanders. The lottery belongs to a society called the "Beneficencia," by whom it is farmed out, and the profits appropriated to the support of hospitals and charitable institutions. It is the usual practice of the Limanians to purchase tickets regularly; the negroes in particular, as elsewhere, are particularly addicted to trying their luck. Instances are not uncommon in which slaves have purchased their freedom with prizes drawn in the lottery of the "Beneficencia." In a small chapel belonging to the church of St. Dominic, were formerly exhibited relics of St. Rose, the patroness of Lima. Among them was a pair of dice, with which it was gravely said that, when the fair saint was exhausted by prayer and penance, the Saviour would appear and revive her drooping spirits with a friendly game. Of late years these uncanonical relics are not exhibited, but Stevenson, the author of a standard work on South America, relates that they were shown to him in 1805, when he kissed them with as much devotion as he would have manifested to any other pair. Every morning at a quarter to nine o'clock, when the Host is elevated in the Cathedral, and in the evening at the hour of the Angelus, the great bell of the Cathedral tolls three measured strokes, which are repeated from all the many belfries of Lima. Every occupation is at once suspended, every hat is reverentially raised; every lip moves, uttering its whispered prayer. The evening prayer being ended, each one makes the sign of the cross, and bids the person next him _buenas noches_--"good-night." It is an act of courtesy to insist that one's neighbor shall take the precedence in the salutation; and he, not to be outdone in politeness, must waive the proffered honor. The courteous contest--"You say it," and "No, sir, you say it," is sometimes not a little amusing.