Works of this sort are less common in France than in England. In France there is only the Academy of Sciences to go to: in England there is a reading public out of the Royal Society, &c.
A DISCOURSE ON PROBABILITY.
About 1830 was published, in the Library of Useful Knowledge, the tract on Probability, the joint work of the late Sir John Lubbock[[611]] and Mr. Drinkwater (Bethune).[[612]] It is one of the best elementary openings of the subject. A binder put my name on the outside (the work was anonymous) and the consequence was that nothing could drive out of people's heads that it was written by me. I do not know how many denials I have made, from a passage in one of my own works to a letter in the Times: and I am not sure that I have succeeded in establishing the truth, even now. I accordingly note the fact once more. But as a book has no right here unless it contain a paradox—or thing counter to general opinion or practice—I will produce two small ones. Sir John Lubbock, with whom lay the executive arrangement, had a strong objection to the last word in "Theory of Probabilities," he maintained that the singular probability, should be used; and I hold him quite right.
The second case was this: My friend Sir J. L., with a large cluster of intellectual qualities, and another of social qualities, had one point of character which I will not call bad and cannot call good; he never used a slang expression. To such a length did he carry his dislike, that he could not bear head and tail, even in a work on games of chance: so he used obverse and reverse. I stared when I first saw this: but, to my delight, I found that the force of circumstances beat him at last. He was obliged to take an example from the race-course, and the name of one of the horses was Bessy Bedlam! And he did not put her down as Elizabeth Bethlehem, but forced himself to follow the jockeys.
[Almanach Romain sur la Loterie Royale de France, ou les Etrennes nécessaires aux Actionnaires et Receveurs de la dite Loterie. Par M. Menut de St.-Mesmin. Paris, 1830. 12mo.
This book contains all the drawings of the French lottery (two or three, each month) from 1758 to 1830. It is intended for those who thought they could predict the future drawings from the past: and various sets of sympathetic numbers are given to help them. The principle is, that anything which has not happened for a long time must be soon to come. At rouge et noir, for example, when the red has won five times running, sagacious gamblers stake on the black, for they think the turn which must come at last is nearer than it was. So it is: but observation would have shown that if a large number of those cases had been registered which show a run of five for the red, the next game would just as often have made the run into six as have turned in favor of the black. But the gambling reasoner is incorrigible: if he would but take to squaring the circle, what a load of misery would be saved. A writer of 1823, who appeared to be thoroughly acquainted with the gambling of Paris and London, says that the gamesters by
profession are haunted by a secret foreboding of their future destruction, and seem as if they said to the banker at the table, as the gladiators said to the emperor, Morituri te salutant.[[613]]
In the French lottery, five numbers out of ninety were drawn at a time. Any person, in any part of the country, might stake any sum upon any event he pleased, as that 27 should be drawn; that 42 and 81 should be drawn; that 42 and 81 should be drawn, and 42 first; and so on up to a quine déterminé, if he chose, which is betting on five given numbers in a given order. Thus, in July, 1821, one of the drawings was
8 46 16 64 13.