A gambler had actually predicted the five numbers (but not their order), and won 131,350 francs on a trifling stake. M. Menut seems to insinuate that the hint what numbers to choose was given at his own office. Another won 20,852 francs on the quaterne, 8, 16, 46, 64, in this very drawing. These gains, of course, were widely advertised: of the multitudes who lost nothing was said. The enormous number of those who played is proved to all who have studied chances arithmetically by the numbers of simple quaternes which were gained: in 1822, fourteen; in 1823, six; in 1824, sixteen; in 1825, nine, &c.
The paradoxes of what is called chance, or hazard, might themselves make a small volume. All the world understands that there is a long run, a general average; but great part of the world is surprised that this general average should be computed and predicted. There are many remarkable cases of verification; and one of them relates to the quadrature of the circle. I give some account of this and another. Throw a penny time after time until _head_ arrives, which it will do before long: let this be called a _set_. Accordingly, H is the smallest set, TH the next smallest, then TTH, &c. For abbreviation, let a set in which seven _tails_ { 282} occur before _head_ turns up be T^{ 7}H. In an immense number of trials of sets, about half will be H; about a quarter TH; about an eighth, T^{ 2}H. Buffon[614] tried 2,048 sets; and several have followed him. It will tend to illustrate the principle if I give all the results; namely, that many trials will with moral certainty show an approach--and the greater the greater the number of trials--to that average which sober reasoning predicts. In the first column is the most likely number of the theory: the next column gives Buffon's result; the three next are results obtained from trial by correspondents of mine. In each case the number of trials is 2,048.
H 1,024 1,061 1,048 1,017 1,039 TH 512 494 507 547 480 T^{ 2}H 256 232 248 235 267 T^{ 3}H 128 137 99 118 126 T^{ 4}H 64 56 71 72 67 T^{ 5}H 32 29 38 32 33 T^{ 6}H 16 25 17 10 19 T^{ 7}H 8 8 9 9 10 T^{ 8}H 4 6 5 3 3 T^{ 9}H 2 3 2 4 T^{ 10}H 1 1 1 T^{ 11}H 0 1 T^{ 12}H 0 0 T^{ 13}H 1 1 0 T^{ 14}H 0 0 T^{ 15}H 1 1 &c. 0 0 ----- ----- ----- ----- ----- 2,048 2,048 2,048 2,048 2,048