Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1881 — Two Stories of Luck in Lotteries. [ARTICLE]

Two Stories of Luck in Lotteries.

T TtHs TatacngS. Curiously illustrative of the tricks played from time to time by Dams

two wril--muod three times running of number, which appeared to her in luminous figures, while an unearthly voice, repeating over and over again, “This number wUI win the first prise in the Ctase, Lottery” resounded in her mind's ear. She imparted the vision to her guardian, and he repaired to the Royal Lottery office and inquired what had become of the ticket bearing the number in question, receiving the answer that it had been disposed of to a well-known lottery agent in Konigsberg. He forthwith wrote to this person, inclosing the price of the ticket and requesting that it should be forwarded to him by return post. In reply to this application he was informed that this particular ticket had been sold over the counter a day or two before, to whom the agent could not say. He, however, inclosed in his letter another lottery ticket, which he naively recommends as “an excellent and nighly promising number.” But the youthful dreamer’s guardian, failing to recognise any special merit in the ticket thus urged upon his acceptance, sent it back with peremptory instructions that his money should be returned to him without delay. His vexation may be Imagined when at the next drawing of the state lottery the number winning the first prize of £15.000 proved to be, not that of which his ward had thrice successively dreamed, but the one he had refused to purchase at the recommendation of the Konigsberg agent. Still stranger is the second lottery in-

cident recorded by M. Lorm. It took place in a small country town of Nether Austria, and led to a long, wearisome lawsuit, with what result, however, the chronicler does not inform us. In the chief square stood a grocer’s shop, the proprietor of which, the leading tradesman of the place, sold lottery tickets as “sugar and spice and all that’s nice.’’ To him appeared one morning a young st u lent who was a constant customer, in a state of ‘.reat excitement about a dream of the previous night, in which it had been made clearly manifest to him that he had won the great prize in the local landlottery with a ticket which had been chosen for him by the grocer’s wife. He entreated the grocer to intrust him with a packet of lottery tickets for a few s cond in order that he might solicit the lady in question to select one from among them, which ticket he would then purchase and pay for on the spot. /‘You cannot see my wile,” replied the grocer, “for she is in bed, but if you like I will take a few of the tickets up to her room and she shall choose one for you.” To this arrangement the student agreed, and it was carried out accordingly. When the lottery was drawn, the ticket purchased by him upon the grocer’s assurance that it had been picked out by the latter’s wife, turnea out a blank. But the wily ’ grocer drew the first prize with the ticket really selected by his better half, which he had kept for himself, selling another of his own choice to the too-confiding student. So, at least, the stofy goes.