The last mattress remaining to her bed was the place where she stored her savings; she unsewed the ticking, put in from time to time the bit of gold saved from her needs, wrapped carefully in wool, and then sewed the mattress up again.

She intended, at the last drawing, to risk all her savings on the different combinations of her treasured trey.
This passion, so universally condemned, has never been fairly studied.
No one has understood this opium of poverty.

The lottery, all-powerful fairy of the poor, bestowed the gift of magic hopes.

The turn of the wheel which opens to the gambler a vista of gold and happiness, lasts no longer than a flash of lightning, but the lottery gave five days' existence to that magnificent flash.

What social power can to-day, for the sum of five sous, give us five days' happiness and launch us ideally into all the joys of civilization?
Tobacco, a craving far more immoral than play, destroys the body, attacks the mind, and stupefies a nation; while the lottery did nothing of the kind.