THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE IN SPASM.

Otago Witness, Issue 3512, 5 July 1921, Page 52

THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE IN SPASM.

By Igxat/i-,-3 Bhaviik in the Graphic. j In every tobacco shop in the w hole ! length and breadth of King Alfonso’e ! nonunions a laud more than twice the size of Great Britain—you can buy “whole tickets” or “deeimos” (a tenth part) for the Loteria Nacional of Spain. It is the imate lottery and the bull-fight, which here aie relied upon to keep a largely illiterate people quiet. “What His Majesty needs,” said the Minister of Carlos IV (who sucked Spam dry), is not a nation of philosophers, bat only docile and obedient subjects.” And forthwith the Universities were closed, it was Fernando VII who opened the bullnghting “University'” in Seville, which lias always been the home of el toreo elasico. Bulls and lotteries ! The Loteria is, of course, ,a State affair run by the Ministre oe Hacienda, or Chancellor of the Exchequer, who makes millions out of it. Every family in Spain has its lottery budget, just as it has pocket-money for the young, lads or a dress allowance for mother and the girls. I know a certain family who spent about £2O a year in the Loteria. But as Chrismas drew' near one year the Senora’s pitiful heart ached at the sight of j poor children in the streets. “Let us buy i a ‘full’ ticket for the I’rimo Gordo,” she suggested. “But,” objected the husband, “that’ll cost us a thousand pesetas” (£4O nominally). Yet the eenora- had her way, as Senoras will. It was her little son who picked out a certain ticket from among many'. . . . And that same ticket won seven and a half millions! There are periodical drawings of the winning number:? from a great wheel in the Treasury Department. Small boys fish out the numbers, and these boys receive tidy presents from the Fat, Ones. Five thousand pesetas was the tip which my Senor of the L.C. and IV. Bank bestowed upon these innocent instruments j of blind Fortune. Another rear tho entire crew of a battleship—the Alfonso XII —won the Fat Prize. Only one officer flatly refused to take up Lis share, “I’d rather buy some sweets for my babies,’’ he declared roundly. And this he did. But, worse still, when the poor man found how he’d flouted Dame Fortune, he killed himselt ! So goes the romance of the Loteria Naeional in sunny Spain. Last Christmas a full ticket for the Fat Prize cost 2000 pesetas, or, say, £BO. It was queer to see every tobacco shop in a poverty-stricken land advertising “vigesimos,” or twentieth shares, at a hundred pesetas each. The Fat One was this time 12,500,000 pesetas. No one can imagine j Spain without lottery tickets and fighting bulls. These fill the public heart and soul —the bull-fight to look at and talk about, the lottery to look forward to and dream about—plotting how the Fat Prize is to be laid out, or even a more modest one of 100,060 pesetas. After each drawing the winning numbers are published in all the newspapers. Lists are also posted up in all the tobacco shops and in the branch offices of the Loteria throughout the country. No Spaniard will save his money evenin a land where there is no public provision at all for indigence or old age. I counted in one day 4265 beggars in the city of Madrid alone. So the Government takes the money of the masses, and gives them m return a flutter of anticipation and expectation, as well as the straightest of straight deals in the gambling way. Beyond all question men can, and do, exceed their means in buying these lottery tickets. Not long ago there was a. certain clerk who was unduly addicted to wine and the girls. lie got deeper and deeper into the financial mire. At last he embezzled ]iis employer’s money. Tn the grand manner this reckless youth now bought “full” tickets for the lottery at 1000 pesetas each. Of course, by all the laws of morality and o-ood hooks he ought to have lout and confessed, and been severely punished. But, alas! for the moral lesson! In this erratic case the embezzler actually won the Fat One ! Tie ~ paid back all that lie had “borrowed” from his employer's till. And with the hidalgo’s gesture the reckless one retired from' the 'vulgar strife of commerce and became a Grandee, with n lavish rural fitu:a and fighting bulls on his own lands. For all 1 know now that gay skater on the precarious iee of life is now writing “Ad vice to Youths.” connceUing them (in the Machiavellian manner) to “Get money— j honestly if you can. But get money. Look at me !”