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These public tombolas are like too many thimble-rig tables, ostensibly started for charitable objects, and it is popularly whispered that the Roman nobility and heads of the Church purchase vast numbers of these tickets, and never fill them up; but then again, they are not large enough for shaving, and are too small for curl-papers; besides, six hundred and fifty scudi! Whew!
'Never, says the writer of an excellent article based upon M. Planchut's contribution to the Revue des Deux Mondes, 'has the French Government more freely sanctioned lotteries, tombolas, and the opening of tripots disguised as artistic and literary clubs than at present; never has it so completely resigned its control over betting, whether in gambling-houses or the racecourse. To such a Government it is obvious that arguments founded upon the pecuniary advantages rather than the morals of its sons and daughters should be addressed.
There is this excitement about the tombolas in the Piazza Navona, that occasionally a panic seizes the crowd, and in the rush of people to escape from the square, some have their pockets picked, and some are trampled down, never to rise again. Fortunately for Caper, no stampede took place on Advent Sunday, so that he lived to attend another grand tombola in the Villa Borghese.
Their way of keeping it holy, however, with tombolas, horse-races, and fire-works, strikes a heretic, to say the least, oddly. The Roman tombola should be seen in the Piazza Navona democratically; in the Villa Borghese, if not aristocratically at least middle classically, or bourgeois-istically.
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