The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1881-08-23
Singular Superstitions.

Bill Nye, Of the Laramie City Boomerang,
has been compiling a list of superstitions.
When you come to make a list of them, he
says, it is wonderful low many Intelligent
people are the victims of the most unreason-
able whims.
For instance, We are acquainted with a
young lady who is well educated, and far
above the average class who form the great
army of the superstitious, vino never allows
a breakfast to be prepared in her house on
waslday, Of anything but giblets of Goldfish
and It'd bits of supelauuated grub left over
during the preceding week. Her husband
has struggled to convince her of the utter alb
surdity of the practice, and tried to show her
that there is nothing to it, but all his efforts
have been worse than useless.
A friend of ouls, too, who is a college grad
uate, aud hoots most Of the follies of the
day, is still so superslitlous on one point that
he is a slave to his singular whim. He will
not pass up the same side of the street Oh
which a creditor of his is coming down. He
says he never has good luck when he sees
a creditor over his left shoulder, or meets one
face to face. Some are superstitious about
white horses, owls, and so forth, but this man
says that he never met a creditor but right
away after he heard of some one being
dunned.
Another acquaintance OF ours IS so corr
pletely under the control of an old woman's
notion that he calls Town on himself time and
avail, tba sonr, ,f LiS friap1s He Soayps Ia
think there is something fatal about seeing a
contribution box on Sunday. He therefore
gets up and PUSHES out of church just before
the collection is taken up, rather than bring
disaster down upon himself and family.
Sill another friend of ours, who comes
into the office every few days, has a super
stition that If he were to spit in the cpspidor
he wouldn't live to get home. Some day he
will find that he had better reverse the theo-
ry, or he Will meet with the most horrible
death that has ever occurred in this region.
The most matter-of- fact man we know, and
one who would be considered the very last to
be affected by those old traditions, says he
don't Gaze for new moons over his left shoul-
der, bowling dogs at midnight, or anything OF
the kind but when he sees a big stone chas
Ing a mooley COW, he is always sure to hear
of a new-made grave.
James e. Blaine has a superstition about
kicking an old felt hat Oh the first day of
April.
Carl Schurz has a mortal dread of hold
ing a post-mortem examination on a live hor-
net.
Attorney General MacNesgh, who is bald.
will never brush his head with the brush
that the hired girl has borrowed froE4 his
dressing case. He says the long hairs tickle
his scalp, and the hired girl is almost sure to
lose her situation. 1t is a bad sign.
Henry Ward Beecher says that if, in walk
ing out in the yard. he sees a clothesline and
saws it across his windpipe, it is a sure sign
that some one will get licked.
An old journalist we once knew was so |
suspicious about railroads and different lines
of trar sit Il at be wouldn't take a journey
the superintendent that could be shown to
the conductor OH the way. He said he tried
to make a trip once without this precaution
and met with a terrible accident. Nobody
else was hurt, but he was thrown of the
train and over an embankment twenty seven
feet high into a frog-pond eleven feet deep.
He thinks the conductor had something to do
with it.