THRILLS OF A LOTTERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20228, 12 April 1929, Page 13

THRILLS OF A LOTTERY.

EXCITEMENT IN NAPLES.

EXTRAORDINARY SCENES. The drawing in an official lottery at Naples has had an extraordinary result a few weeks ago. The purchasers of tickets won so much that for a time the officials were unable lo pay out (lie win-

nings. This is due to a practice among many of the people of Naples of selecting three numbers out of ninety and all backing them. Tho numbers 8, 65 and 90 were chosen this time and by a strange turn of fortune all came out as winners in the samo drawing. Tho odds in such a case aro something like 6000 to 1. The public thus won over £540,000, making the drawing the largest of tho kind ever recorded. As a consequence all Naples seemed to have lost its head. When the result becamo known the scenes in the city were almost indescribable. Tho populous quarters of the Mercato, tho Vicaria, the Pendino, tho Porta, Iho Montecalvario were simply swarming with thousands of lottery winners shouting and dancing wildly w r ith joy. Nearly everybody was in tho streets holding up slips of paper in triumph. Ono old woman who sold sweets and cakes from a stand at a street corner looked at her papers and found she had won with five lire more than 20,000 lire (£217). She kicked over her stand, sent, her biscuits and cakes into the middle of the street and ran away in delirious frenzy. Bonfires were lighted and tho people kept up tho celebration, shouting and talking till long after midnight,. When Iho order came for payments to begin a few days later only some of the booths wero opened. They wero literally stormed by a frenzied mass of persons and the keepers of the booths were unable fo satisfy the wild, gesticulating crowds.