Lottery

In Rochester, N. Y., many a suicide has jumped from the high bridge over the Genesee River into the rock-strewn waters far below. Coroners call it “Suicide Bridge.” Next month Rochester will dedicate a new bridge, hoping to keep its name clean. Under his office door one day lately Coroner Richard Anthony

Leonardo found a lottery ticket. Prizes totaled $25,000. First prize, $10,000, was to go to the holder of the ticket with numbers most nearly corresponding to the date of the first suicide from the new bridge, the age, weight, height of the victim. Angry police found plenty of holders who had bought tickets for 50¢ but searched in vain for the sellers. Coroner Leonardo, remembering that in a similar lottery at Niagara Falls a corpse had been placed in the gorge to “throw” the prize, promised that when the first suicide was committed he would keep the victim’s specifications a deep secret.