The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1878-08-22

Dear IA the messengers of spring
Before the buds have opened wide,
Dear when our other birds arc hero,
Dear in the burning summertide;
Bat when the lonely autumn wind
In vain We look for You. and find
Your empty nests beneath the caves.
-Dera Read Gooiaie. in 81. Niehoiasfor dug.
WHAT THERE Is In LUCK.
The subject Of Chances and Is Remark.
aOl, COincidencss,'' Analysed By q
Man Of Science.
In Forster's Life of Dickens a Gu
rious story is told Of what Dickens
called wonderful, a paralyzing CO.
incidence" experienced on the Don
caster Race-COurse. On the st. Leger
Day, in 1857, Dickens bought card of
the races: facetiously wrote down three
names for the winners of the three chief
races (never in his life having heard
or thought of any of the horses, except
that the winner of the Derby, who
proved t" be nowhere, had been mem
toned to him), and, If you can be-
lieve it," he wrote to Forster, /" If you
can believe it without your hair stand
ing on end, those three races were won,
one after another, by those three
horses!!" (The notes of exclamation
are his own.) Such cases as these
seem to many to afford absolutely con-
vincing evidence of the reality Of what
is commonly called luck-that is, the
occurrence of events that pure chance
cannot account for. Isuppose ninety
nine men in one hundred believe in
InxE of nrf ~.
Others unlucky: or else on some occa-
sions man is lucky, or his luck is in
the ascendant. while on others he is
unlucky. Men who ought to know
most about such matters--that is, men
who very often try their luck-have
the fullest faith in these ideas. In
Steinmetz's Treatise on the d(DIAing
Table we have the axioms of a pro-
fessional gambler (and blackleg, but
that is Il detaiD, and among them we
find the doctrine of good and bad
luck. of lucky and unlucky seasons, set
down as sort of first principle, which
none can doubt or question. "A pru-
dent player" he says, "before UNDER
taking anything, should put himself to
the test to discover if he is in vein,'
or in luck; in all doubt he should alb
stain. There are several persons" he
says again, "whO are constantly pur-
sued by bad luck; to such l say, Never
play"
suppose it is utterly hopeless to at
tempt to persuade those who believe in
luck that the experience of gamblers in
this respect has been wholly deceptive,
and that condolences such as the one,
for example, which Dickens called
wonderful and paralyzing, are not in
the least wonderful, and might safely
he predicted. One such story does
more to encourage belief in luck than
any amount of reasoning could do to
show that the belief is unfounded and
mischievous.
1t may be useful, however. to con-
slider such stories as that related above
(using it as an illustrative case.) 1t
appears, and in one sense it was u very
singular coincidence, that Dickens
taking one name at random from the
sets Of horses names for each of three
races, should in each case select the
winner Of the race. l do not know
how many names there were; but the
st. Leger is not a race for which many
horses usually run. Probably about
ten may have run in 1857, and perhaps
six horses for each of the other two
races. If this were so, the chance of
doing what Dickens did was equal to
that of drawing one particular ticket
from among $50 (ten times six times)
in single trial. If there were ten
horses in each race, the chance was
the same as that of drawing one ticket
from among 900 (ten times ten times),
ETC., the calculation being exceedingly
simple, whatever the number of horses
may have been. Now. certainly, it was a
curious chance that anyone at q first trial
should have had this piece of good for
tune-0r what at least would have been
good fortune had money depended upon
the result-just as it would have seemed
curious chance if vase containing
some 400 tickets had been set before
Dickens, and he had, at first trial,
drawn the particular prize-ticket. But
it must be remembered that, if nothing
remarkable had followed from Dickens
little experiment, we should have heard
nothing about it. We never do hea;
anything about the thousands, nay, we
may fairly say the millions, of casesi n
which men try their luck and nothing
noteworthy comes of the trial. Dick.
ems was one of thousands who have
tried some such experiment al
at their first race The experiment.
again, was doubtless one of thousands
of cases in which Dickens was, SO tc
speak, in the way of meeting with some
strange experience. We hear nothing
Of the cases in which such experiment.
fail; but every single case in which
they succeed, either wholly or partial
", is reported, and, once reported, it il
repeated over and over again. unit
each =" strange chance" has done dut,
for a thousand strange chances. Blu
SO soon rs we recognize this we per
ceive the real Interpretation Of coinci
dences of the kind. They are no mors
wonderful, in reality, than would bt
the drawing Of one marked ticket ou
OF any number of tickets in q muct
greater number of trials (the drawn
ticket being replaced after each trial)
If there are q thousand tickets. one
of which is marked, and a million
drawings are made in this way, it is t.
all intents and purposes certain tha,
the marked ticket will be drawn a vrea,
number of times; and it is exceedinpI,
probable, the probability amounting
almost to certainty, that the number O
successful drawings will not greatly
exceed or fall short of 1000. It Is yer,
easy to show that, with = sufficien
number of trials, the wonderful an,
paralyzing circumstance which hap
pened to Dickens would be sure to hap
pen several times. Suppose the mum
Der of horses in three given races t.
be ten, six and six, and that of h
many thousands of persons on the race
course, 10000 try the experiment mad