more than a _terno_. If four numbers are played with all their chances, they are reckoned as four _terni_, and paid for accordingly. If five numbers are taken, the price is for five _terni_. Where two numbers are played, there is always an augment to the nominal prize of twenty per cent.; where three numbers are played, the augment is of eighty per cent.; and from every prize is deducted ten per cent., to be devoted to the hospitals and the poor. The rule creating the augments was decreed by Innocent XIII. Such is the rage for the lottery in Rome, as well as in all the Italian States, and so great is the number of tickets bought within the year, that this tax on the prizes brings in a very considerable revenue for eleemosynary purposes. The lottery is a branch of the department of finance, and is under the direction of a Monsignore. The tickets originally issue from one grand central office in the Palazzo Madama; but there is scarcely a street in Rome without some subsidiary and distributing office, which is easily recognized, not only by its great sign of "_Prenditoria di Lotti_" over the door, but by scores of boards set round the windows and doorway, on which are displayed, in large figures, hundreds of combinations of numbers for sale. The tickets sold here are merely purchased on speculation for resale, and though it is rare that all are sold, yet, as a small advance of price is asked on each ticket beyond what was given at the original office, there is enough profit to support these shops. The large show of placards would to a stranger indicate a very considerable investment; yet, in point of fact, as the tickets rarely cost more than a few _baioicchi_, the amount risked is small. No ticket is available for a prize, unless it bear the stamp and signature of the central office, as well as of the distributing shop, if bought in the latter.