In Italy, nothing is done without consulting the _Lunario_. All kinds of roots and seeds must be planted with the new moon, or they will bear no produce. Timber must be cut down with the old moon, or it will quickly rot. These rules and many more are usually followed; and it is reported as a matter of fact, that their infringement brings the looked-for results. In the Neapolitan province, old women go to the graveyards by night and count the tombs illuminated by the moonlight; the sum total gives them a "number" for the lottery. The extraordinary vagaries of superstition kept alive by the public lotteries are of almost endless variety and complexity. No well-known man dies without thousands of the poorest Neapolitans racking their brains with abtruse calculations on the dates of his birth, death, and so on, in the hope of discovering a lucky number. Fortune, chance (what, after all, shall it be called?) sometimes strangely favours these pagan devices. When Pio Nono died, the losses of the Italian exchequer were enormous; and in January 1884, the numbers staked on the occasion of the death of the patriot De Sanctis, produced winnings to the amount of over two million francs. During the last cholera epidemic, the daily rate of mortality was eagerly studied with a view to happy combinations. Even in North Italy such things are not unknown. At Venice, when a notable Englishman died some years ago in a hotel, the number of his room was played next day by half the population. Domestic servants are among the most inveterate gamblers; they all have their cabalistic books, and a large part of their earnings goes to the insatiable "lotto."
The feeling of helplessness in the hands of Fate is strongest in those countries where there is the least control over Nature. The relations between man and Nature affect not only the social life, but also the theology and politics of whole races of men. A learned Armenian who lives at Venice, came to London for a week in June to see some English friends. It rained every day, and when he left Dover, the white cliffs were enveloped in impenetrable fog. "I asked myself" (he wrote, describing his experiences) "how it was possible that a great nation should exist behind all that vapour?" It was suggested to him that in the continual but, in the long run, victorious struggle with an ungenial climate might lie the secret of the development of that great nation. Different are the lands where the soil yields its increase almost without the labour of man, till one fine day the whole is swallowed up by flood or earthquake.