French lottery (two or three,
each month) from 1758 to 1830. It is intended for those who thought they
could predict the future drawings from the past: and various sets of
_sympathetic_ numbers are given to help them. The principle is, that
anything which has not happened for a long time must be soon to come. At
_rouge et noir_, for example, when the red has won five times running,
sagacious gamblers stake on the black, for they think the turn which must
come at last is nearer than it was. So it is: but observation would have
shown that if a large number of those cases had been registered which show
a run of five for the red, the next game would just as often have made the
run into six as have turned in favor of the black. But the gambling
reasoner is incorrigible: if he would but take to squaring the circle, what
a load of misery would be saved. A writer of 1823, who appeared to be
thoroughly acquainted with the gambling of Paris and London, says that the
gamesters by {281} profession are haunted by a secret foreboding of their
future destruction, and seem as if they said to the banker at the table, as
the gladiators said to the emperor, _Morituri te salutant_.[613]

In the French lottery, five numbers out of ninety were drawn at a time. Any
person, in any part of the country, might stake any sum upon any event he
pleased, as that 27 should be drawn; that 42 and 81 should be drawn; that
42 and 81 should be drawn, and 42 first; and so on up to a _quine
determine_, if he chose, which is betting on five given numbers in a given
order. Thus, in July, 1821, one of the drawings was

8 46 16 64 13.

A gambler had actually predicted the five numbers (but not their order),
and won 131,350 francs on a trifling stake. M. Menut seems to insinuate
that the hint what numbers to choose was given at his own office. Another
won 20,852 francs on the quaterne, 8, 16, 46, 64, in this very drawing.
These gains, of course, were widely advertised: of the multitudes who lost
nothing was said. The enormous number of those who played is proved to all
who have studied chances arithmetically by the numbers of simple quaternes
which were gained: in 1822, fourteen; in 1823, six; in 1824, sixteen; in
1825, nine, &c.

The paradoxes of what is called chance, or hazard, might themselves make a
small volume. All the world understands that there is a long run, a general
average; but great part of the world is surprised that this general avera