There is a monthly lottery in Havana, with prizes amounting to one hundred and ten thousand dollars, and sometimes as high as one hundred and eighty thousand dollars, under the immediate direction and control of the authorities, and which is freely patronized by the first mercantile houses, who have their names registered for a certain number of tickets each month. The poorer classes, too, by clubbing together, become purchasers of tickets, including slaves and free negroes; and it is but a few years since, that some slaves, who had thus united and purchased a ticket, drew the first prize of sixty thousand dollars; which was honestly paid to them, and themselves liberated by the purchase of their freedom from their masters. Honestly and strictly conducted as these lotteries are, yet their very stability, and the just payment of all prizes, but makes them the more baneful and dangerous in their influence upon the populace. Though now and then a poor man becomes rich through their means, yet thousands are impoverished in their mad zeal to purchase tickets, though it cost them their last medio. The government thus countenances and fosters a taste for gambling, while any one acquainted at all with the Spanish character, must know that the people need no prompting in a vice to which they seem to take intuitively. The Spaniards receive credit for being a very hospitable people, and to a certain extent this is due to them; but the stranger soon learns to regard the extravagant manifestations which too often characterize their etiquette, as quite empty and heartless. Let a stranger enter the house of a Cuban for the first time, and the host or hostess of the mansion says at once, either in such words or their equivalent, "All that we have is at your service; take what you will, and our right hand with it." Yet no one thinks of understanding this literally. The family volante is at your order, or a saddle horse; and in such small kindnesses they are indeed polite; but when they beg of you to accept a ring, a book, a valuable toy, because you have happened to praise it, you are by no means to do so. Another trait of character which suggests itself in this connection, is their Universal habit of profuse compliment.[28] The ladies listen to them, as a matter of course, from their countrymen, or from such Frenchmen as have become domesticated in the island; but if an American takes occasion to compliment them, they are at once delighted, for they believe them to be sincere, and the matter is secretly treasured to be repeated.