The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-04-24
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
AN ANTI-CALAMITY CROAKER So
Getty AND ITS WORK

Members Have at Length laugh,
People to Be Ashamed OF.
From the Neto York Commercial Advertiser.
On Friday evening. Jan. IS. 1889, at s:lS
o'clock. in room Is of Knicker booker cot
tage. No. 454 Sixth avenue, New York, one
of the old-time hostelries of the metropolis,
thirteen gentlemen sat down to dinner, aud
then and there organized club having for
its object the uprooting of the ancient
superstition that the day aud the number
thirteen are fraught with evil. Curl
ously, in the name of the host and
founder OF the CLUB, William Fowler, are
thirteen letters; there are thirteen letters in
the name "KnIcker booker" the numbers
! 454 make thirteen, and they also comprise
the NUN er of letters in "Cltv of New
! York" The dinner consisted OF thirteen
| courses. and each man drank out OF thirteen
bottles Of wine. OF the original mem bers
eleven are alive, and two did not die until
six years afterward. 1t is worthy Of note,
however, at at this first feast it was nee
esSary 80 lock the doors in order to sustain
| the courage of the party.
They were called cranKs. iconoclasts and
Don QuixoteS fighting imaginary windmills.
aud other uncomplimentary Names but the
| club grew from thirteen members in jan
uary, 1882, until it reached membership Of
thirteen times thirteen in 1885. twenty-six
times thirteen in 1886, and 100 times thir-
teen, the limit decided upon, in 1889 1t
now numbers upon its roll some OF the most
distinguished man in the country, including
President Harrison, ex-President Grover
Cleveland, and late ex-Presi-
dent Chester A. Arthur. governors
of states, United States senators, chief jus
tees, statesmen, clergymen, editors and
hundreds Of other men Of high and low de-
gree. The initiation fee is lis cents, the
nominal dues 10 cents q month, and The din
Eers. always held on the 18th of the mouth,
bring together as merry lot of philJso-
pliers and story-tallers as ever made right
angles NTH their legs under the mahog-
any" and kept people around them il
state OF interesting agitation.
la truth, 1T may be,r ghtly designated an
antl-calamlty croaker society, the OBJ jecs of
Will h IS to make man ashamed % ac-
knowledge that he cannot rise superior to
the ordinary superstitions of the age. And
yet there IS an exception to every rule. The
story is told even OF Capt. Fowler, the
founder Of the Thirteen Club, that, on the
occasion Of one of tue dinners, seeing lad
der which some practical joker had sus-
pended over the entrance to the banquet
room, he quietly excused himself from the
leadership of the procession Of guests about
to pass under it, and as fast as he could take
his ponderous $40 pounds OF avoirdupos,
moved around and entered by another door.
The ladder was too much for hin. =
The first mention of the number thirteen
in the Bible occurs In Genesis XIV, 4,
Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer"
and in the thirteenth year they rebelled."
From that time down to this it is claimed
that the number has dominated in all the his
torical eras in which wars have occurred.
There were thirteen tribes Of Israel. 1hir-
tee tribes went with Moses into the wilder
ness Thirteen disciples sat at the last sup
per of Christ. There were thirteen colonies
and original states in our republic, thirteen
articles of confederation, and thirteen
years elapsed between indepeude CO and the
| adoption of the constitution. Our national
banner held thirteen stripes and stars. The
motto "E Pluribus Unumn contains thir-
teen letters, and upon the seal of the United
States thirteen letters are found in the leg
end "Annuit Coepts," meaning He pros
pers our beginning"
Not long ago a writer In the New York
Tribune, after describing the loss by col =
lision of PIlotboat IL, concluded in these
| words: 1.-THE career Of the men who owned
the boat has been an rnlucky one. They
| owned the original PilorboAt No. II, which
| designatl n contains just thirteen letters.
They had folio we'd the profession just
thirteen years then their first boat was
named her the Phantom. This boat was
lost in the great blizzard thirteen letters of
March IL, 1858. Then they built the A. E.
Bateman, or. as she is registered, Piotboat
No. IL. In just thirteen months from the
time her predecessor was lost she was run
down and sunk by the steamer Servia
(thirteeu letters. There were on board at
the time twelve persons aud cat, or
thirteen in all, and the loss was about Sl3,-
000.n
Thus, ridicule IL as we may, superstition
confronts us in one form or another as an
everyday experience. 1t seems to be one of
the ineradicable attributes of human
nature. Tn Sc who are not habituated to
reflection often retain undiminshed until
their dying hour belief in signs and omens
which they were taught in childhood. The
fireballs usually known by the names Of
"Jack-o' Lanternn or "Will-o'- the Wisp. y
that are some times seen dancing over
marshy places in the country, are only an
infammable gas oozing from the ground
aud set on fire from spontaneous combus-
ton, yet they have produced great terror
and often serious injury
Many man has fed as though demons
were in pursuit of him because he has seen
in some rotten stump the bright lis ht which
decayed wood EN- Is, phosphorus being
present. A man who is thoroughly fright
ened can imagine almost anything. The
WhlStlng or the WIND sounds In his ears like
the cry Of dying men; waving tree is a
ghost; a guidepost III the dark is like a
giant, and every COW he chances to meet is
an apparition from the land of hobgoblins.
A person thus terrified is always sure to ex-
aggerate.
A sailor will climb to the topmast's dizzy
hight and be fearless in the midst of a
storm, yet will tremble in his hammock
when he hears the little insect called the
deathwatch ticking in tho timber by his
side. A soldier will go bravely through the
bloodiest battle, and yet in the night after
the conflict be afraid to go among the bodies
of the poverless dead. A former cuiuf
justice OF New York once said: ~ have no
faith in signs, and still l always feel I'M
pleasantly if l flnl a pin with the point
toward me-" A well-kuown author in New
York never fails to pick up pin or a nail.
1t brings him, he says, good luck. Same
people cannot see the new moon over tho
left shoulder, or through the branches Of
trees, without al uneasy sensation. To otn-
ers the spilling OF salt, the fall OF looking
glass, the howl OF dog, a rabbit running
across path or the hOotlng OF an owl, are
signs OF common trouble.
A few superstltiODs common among
wome are these: You must on no account
sing before breakfast, or you will weep be-
fore supper. If, however, you are 30 care
less as to forget yourself to the extent of
cumming bar or two, you must quickly
pronounce the mysterious formula, BREAD