It may be that some memories of the Pythagorean doctrines still exist in the land of their birth, but be the cause what it may, it is certain that in the southern Peninsula a belief in the symbolism of numbers is a received article of faith.

Every thing, name, or event, has its numerical interpretation.

Suppose, for instance, a robbery occurs; forthwith the numbers or sequences of numbers corresponding to the name of the robber or the robbed, the day or hour of the crime, the articles stolen, or a dozen other coincident circumstances, are eagerly sought after and staked upon in the ensuing lottery.

Then there are the _numeri simpatici_, or the numbers in each month or year which are supposed to be fortunate, and lists of which are published in the popular almanacs.

The "sympathetic number for instance for the month of March is 88," why or wherefore I have never been able to discover.