Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1885-01-04
QUEER FREAKS OF SOME MEN.
Some distinguished Cranks of Modern
Timas

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Some eminent specialists, says the
Baltimore Herald, maintain that one
third of mankind are crazy and ought to
be in asylums. DR.. johnson would have
been considered insane because he in
sisted on touching all the gate posts he
passed in London. There is a chief OF an
important bureau in Washington who
has the same habit. He admits that the
! tendency is almost irresistible. Some
times when he is approaching a gate post
which he can not touch because it is sur
rounded by other people, he will turn
back and go some other way. He will
stop in the hardest rainstOrm to put his
finger on post. This eccentricity has
gotten him into a predicament more than
once. The owner of a house in Connecti-
cut avenue once pursued him and de-
manded to know why he tempered with
his gate, threatening to call the police.
On one occasion, while travelling in the
country, he rode back mile to touch a
gate which he had passed and omitted to
touch. The late Secretary Folger had an
insane idea that there was charm in the
figure 8. When a boy and later on in life
he had a fashion Of doing a thing three
times that only had to be done once. He
would eat IuI66 pCdCu6Ss no more ana no
less. If he had four he would throw one
away. If he should eat more than three
he would eat twice three or three times
three. If he was to ride horseback he
would mount three times before starting,
Up to his death he had a way of saying
"GOOd-day'' three times to those he met,
and in letters to his family he invariably
wrote on three pages. Judge FOlger
often alluded to the idiOsyncrasy. He
cold fhat from hiG oar1iacf hro
he had an overpOwering belief in the
cabalistic power of the number 3. He
thought it had been transmitted to him
from his father, or that he had gotten it
from superstitiOns nurse. When a
small boy he walked a mile to school, and
he afterward acknowledged that he had
on more than one day traversed the
distance three times, making six miles in
all, before he felt safe in entering the
school house.
1t was said of Thomas Jefferson that he
would never permit any person to cut his
hair. He used the scissors himself. He
had a superstition that his strength would
depart if he allowed any one else to cut
his hair.
The late Thaddeus Stevens could not
pass pin without picking it up. Fur
thermore, he always walked around, if
necessary, to get the point toward him
before picking it up.
The venerable phIlanthropist, Mr.. W.
W. COrcOran, will not sit down until he
has raised up the chair.
Mr., Lyman, the present chief of the
Bureau of Navigation, is noted for some
strange Authorizations, though man of
varied accomplishments. 1t is almost
too ridiculous for belief, but it is fact
that he is convinced that he has been
married to the departed spirit of the
Empress Josephine, and that the spirit is
the mother Of a child to him which is
now six years CID. For a year he kept
Mrs. Best, a noted Boston medium, in
Washington under a good salary because
she could ''materlalize" the spirit of jose
phine SO that it could come out from the
cabinet, sit in his lap and kiss him. To
his intimate friends Mr.. Lyman talks
seriously about this affair as if it were
an everyday concern.
If Senator Vance hears q cock crow
before midnight he is nervous for a week
for fear that some calamity is about to
happen.