The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1880-01-09
Nineteenth Century.l

One grave fault, l might say capital
is chargeable to the Government in its
use of the lottery as source Of income
or as permitted amusement of the peo
pie. The world has learned by the fnan'
cial operations of France the value Of
the little economies of whole people
1t is precisely these economies whose Ok.
istence in Italy is prevented by the ruin
GUS State lotteries. The whole life Of
the average Italian peasant and workman
is spent in saving to buy lottery tickets
it is demoralized, in ways almost incon-
ceivable, by the entire diversion of all
his faculties from legitimate productive
ness and small accumulations to the in.
toxicating dream of competence &C.
quired by lucky number.
The very beggar in the streets Of any
Of the italian cities, when he has made
up the sum of the smallest fraction Of a
ticket which is purchasable, rushes off to
the Government office 10 invest it in a
chance Of becoming a nabob. The ex-
tent of the diversion of savings to this
pursuit may be gathered from the net
revenue of 8O,O0O,OOO francs derived
from it. Better to double the macinato
than to perpetuate this mania, so utterly
subversive of the economy of the State.
The italian lower classes live in condi-
ton of febrile aspiration to wealth with
out thrift, without interest in the pros
perity of the State, and without the pos
sibility of caring for their own future;
victims to the most Unsuitable of all vices,
in which their Government, which ought
to protect them, is an accOmplice.
Any financial reform which does not
root up the lottery system will fail in
giving to Italy that greatest source of
national wealth, the habit of small ac-
cumulations and of dependence on saw
ing for the future, and will as certainly
fail to give her the economical position
her natural resources have prepared for
her. In considering this question, how
ever, and the double difficulty of depriv-
ing the people of an amusement of i'm
memorial antiquity, and the revenue of
serious item in the resources of the
finance department, we must not forget
that it is easier to point out the unsound-
ness of a policy than to heal it; easier to
give up old resources than to find
new ones, and Italy. by all its successive
Governments for two thousand years,
has been treated to panem ct cir
censes, as the remedy for all popular
complaints, so that to keep the macinato
and sacrifice the lottery would be a re-
versal too absolute to be readily enter
tanned by Government, or understood
by people who are, in small matters at
least, in the highest degree conservative.
l believe that to abolish the Church,
drive out the Pope and priesthood, and
turn the. churches into barracks would
cause less commotion than to shut up
abruptly the lottery Offices and attempt
to stop this kind of gambling. Church
and State alike have encouraged and
profted by it for centuries, and to treat
it from the moral point of view from
which we in England look at it,
would be visionary to even the most
reasonable Italians
And then the Minister of Finance says
to you despairingly: How make up the
eighty millions the lottery gives US? How
indeed! If the Italians had Chancellor
of the Exehequer such as Gladstone was
for England, it might we'll be done. II
Italy had class of public men who had
the force of strong convictions, and had
clear views Of governmental response
bility and conduct, it might be done. If
even the mass Of the nation had pecun-
iary patriotism, it might be done-and
done in some way and at some time it
must be.