Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1885-04-03
STRANGE FANCIEs OF PUBLIC MEN.

| had no doubt about the result, and when
asked why, said: "Oh, it's just my luck"
| This may be apocryphal, but it expresses a
| common view that Mr.. Cleveland believes
| firmly in his good angel and trusts her. But
| if this be correct, the President will not have
far to look to find men of force of character
and public repute who guide their conduct
to greater degree than they would care to
| admit by equally unreasonable, or rather un-
reasoning, influences. The whims, super
stitions, freaks, or whatever they may be
called, of many men of good, hard, common
sense, who have become conspicuous in pub
| lie or business life, are more potent forces
than would be supposed. The experience
of such alienists as DR.. Hammond or the
late DR.. H. Beard. would, if published, make
a most curious and interesting story. For
these physicians there is no surprise when
shrewd and wealthy financier or successful
politician hesitatingly confesses that he is
controlled by some fancy that seems child
sh but is none the less potent. They meet
80 many such cases that they are inclined TO
think that if almost all men would make
confession they would admit that some kind
of fancy or belief had possession of them.
| DR.. Beard once said to the writer that
one Of the most successful inanciers of Wall
/
vinced that if he walked on the right hand
Broadway block between Houston and
Prince streets he would meet some terrible
calamity, either in business or personally.
This banker was accustomed to walk down
Broadway for exercise, on the right hand
side, and when he reached Houston street
he crossed over, walking the block to Prince
on the left hand. Then he would cross
back again perfectly content. Satisfied that
the seeming conviction was mere Whim,
he once, by force of will, went on few
steps on the block, but he suffered such an
agony of fear that he gave it up, and crossed
the street.
Another of DR.. Boards patients, a we'll.
known lawyer, who lived in Brooklyn,
would never cross the ferry unless he could
get to a certain spot on the rear deck, so
that he could stand with one foot on the big
iron clamp. He believed that if he failed
to do so he would meet with misfortune of
some kind.
President Garfield, who was Of a keenly
susceptible temperament, had profound
conviction that the figure 10 would be asso-
ciated strikingly with the events of his
career. He was born on the 10Th of the
month, and died on the 10th. 1t was known
by Garfield's friends that he was firmly con-
vinced that he would one day become
President. Some incident that happened
while he was in the army fixed the convic.
ton in his mind that he would become Pres
ident, provided he never strayed from the
path the omen pointed out. His friends, not
knowing just what the omen was, were sat
isfed that in obeying its dictates GarfelG's
otherwise inexplicable course in some things
of comparatively petty consequence found
explanation.
Speaker Carlisle is as practical and unsen-
timental IN temperament as Garfield was the
opposite yet Mr.. Carlisle is dominated by
one notion, if not by more. He will begin
no new thing on Friday. When he came to
Washington to manage his canvass for the
| speakership, year and a half ago, he ar
| rived one day later than expected, much to
the disappointment of some of his friends.
1t appears that he inaa made his arrange.
ments TO leave Covington Friday night; but
on the evening of that day, just as he was
about to start, he remembered that it was
Friday, and he at once deferred his depar
ture. He couldn't have been Induced 10
start that night.
It is believed in Wall street that the cool,
imperturbableJ Jim Keene suffers torture from
the fear that poison somehow or other has
got into anything of liquid form that he
drinks, not Intentionally put there, but there
by accident, and he would not dare drink a
glass of water, wine or coffee without going
through some secret performance that wards
off the danger.
Mr.. Blaine with all his common sense,
will never turn back to enter his house
after he has quilted it, in case he has for
gotten something not, at least, until he has
walked few PAGES on the sidewalk, and
he is not free from few other hallucina-
tions, if that is the name for these mental
phenomena.
Who would think that ex-Secretary
Chandler would permit himself to be both
cred by such visionary influences as count
ing white horses for luck? He counts every
one that he sees until he reaches thirty
nine, and then he begins over again. Speak
ing of this one, he said he had often Won
dered why he did so, for his reason told
him that it was nonsense; yet he felt un-
comfortable unless he did. When Presi-
dent Arthur went to Florida with Mr..
| Chandler the party arrived at Jacksonville
| in the evening. The president entered a
carriage drawn by four horses and in
moment the booming of cannon frighten-
ed them and started them on run. Mr.
Chandler stood up in his carriage we'll
| frightened. He saw that one of the horses
attached to the Presidents carriage was
white, and counted it, making the seth, all
by an instantaneous process Of the mind. In
| q moment the horses we're quleted down.
Mr.. Chandler said that his Judgment told him
that there could be no possible connection be-.
tween his counting of the horse, which he had
failed to do when he first saw it, and the preVen-
tion of runaway with the President, and yet
somehow he trcmbled when he thought what
might have happened.
The late Secretary Folger all his life believed
that there was charm for him In the number :"
He laughed at it, but let it dominate him.
Such hard-headed old statesman as Thaddeus
Stevens cherished the hallucination that there
was luck in picking up pins. BE never passed
one if he saw il, without picking it up, getting
the point before him. 1t has been said OF Mr. w.
w. Corcoran that he will not sit down upon 8
chair until he has first raised it up.
The alienists say there is no special cure for
these mental phenomena, and as general thing
there is no need for any, as they arc harmless,
and BY no means indicate mental disease. The
work of the alienist lies in the recognition of the
tendency of the hallucinations to increase, or be
10 tba in