Hutchinson gazette. [volume] (Hutchinson, Kan.) 1895-1902, 1897-10-21
THE BAKERS DOZE.
rWo ACCOUNTS GIVING THE oRlel
OF THE PHRASE.

tersen, the Baker, and the Old Woman
Everybody knows that IS is q
"baker's dozen," but everybody does
not know why. The origin of the phrase
"baker's dozen" is commonly attrib-
uted to custom that prevailed among
British bakers in the days when severe
penalties were inflicted upon tradesmen
who cheated their customers with short
weight or short measure. A dozen cakes
or rolls or loaves might easily fall short
of the standard weight, so in order to
guard themselves against the risk of in
advertently mourning the penalties OF
the short weight statutes, without going
to the trouble of weighing every thing
they sold, as a make weight, to every
dozen cakes, or rolls, or loaves deliver
ed to a customer. This explanation is
unsatisfactory. 1t is disappointingly
prosaic, and it utterly fails to account
for the fact that the bakers dozen" is
also commonly known as the devil S
dozen.
A better explanation is to be found
in q legend that gives the phrase an
American origin. 1t is not wholly de-
void of picturesqueness. 1t suggests the
reason why bakers dozen" and "dev
IFS dozen" are synonyms, and it carries
rather a good moral with it.
The story is somewhat as follows: In
the middle Of the seventeenth century
the most famous baker in the New
Netherlands was Jan Petersen, who
had come to Fort Orange from Amster-
dam and was the first man i'll the new
world to make those fiat, oblong, orna-
mentally stamped, with caraway seed
literally besprinkled, crisp, toothsome
cookies, familiar in the days before all
the old Dutch customs sank into disuse
under the name of New Years cakes. p"
Petersen was a just man, but his JUS
tice was never tempered with liberality.
With him q dozen was a dozen, neither
more nor less; also pennyworth was
worth a penny, and he parted with no
pennyworth of his save in consideration
of penny had and received in ex-
change.
On the night of Dec. 81, 1868, Jan
Petersen sat i'll his shop, we'll stocked
with New Years cakes provided for the
expected demand of the morrow, when
a little old woman, bearing all the
marks of age and poverty that in those
days marked women out as witches, en-
tered, demanding a dozen New Years
cookies. Petersen carefully counted out
- cakes. "Here are but IL. 1 want q
Dozen" demonstrated his customer.
"Twelve is q Dozen" said Jan. ION
New Years eve, between rich and poor,
IS is Dozen" shrilly insisted his
queer customer. "Give me 49," But
Petersen would not. He argued that
nobody ever heard the like; that at all
times and ON all occasions dozen was a
dozen. Finally, finding argument Of no
avail against the beldame's persist
ence, he told her to go to "der tuyfel"
for the extra cooky. Probably the old
woman took his advice, for she left the
shop, and from that instant Petersen
found himself pursued by some super
natural and malevolent power. All his
New Years cakes turned stale and
moldy before morning, he lost his skill
as a baker, all his dough was so light
that it flew up the chimney or so heavy
that it fell through the oven, his jour
neymen robbed him, his wife developed
critical disposition and tongue hung
in the middle, his children went wild,
and his trade went elsewhere. Few men
could have fought against such a COM
bination Of misfortunes, but Petersen
had money laid by, and Petersen was
the most obstinate and phlegmatio of
Dutchmen So he kept his shop open
though nobody came to buy, and the
scant, i'll made and i'll baked stock he
was able to provide for it nodded on
his hands.
During three years, on each success
sive New Years eve, the old woman
reappeared i'll Jan Pietersen's melan-
choly shop, demanding the thirteenth
cooky. Each time she was sent anew to
the devil. Jan Petersen was no fool.
He could see as far into milestone as
any man in the New Netherlands. AL
most from the first he had been con-
WINGED of the connection between his
refusal to count Is to the dozen and his
misfortunes. But he would not violate
his life creed: "a dozen is dozen. A
man has done his whole duty toward
God and toward his neighbor when be
has kept strictly to the letter of the
law" But at last, when his savings
were all gone, he broke down and APP
pealed to st. Nicholas to help him. In
stantly the venerable guardian Of all
good Hollanders appeared. The saint
sternly rebuked the trembling baker for
the hard narrowness and self righteous
ness that had given the foul fiend pow
er over him, admonished him to be
more careful in the future, and con-
cluded by promising him one more
chance to redeem himself. The saint de-
parted In walked the old woman with
her demand for the extra cooky to make
up her dozen. It was handed to her,
and she vanished, crying: 1.-THE spell
is broken; from this time ON Is is a
Dozen" Jan Petersen never forgot his
lesson. Through long and prosperous
career he always gave IS to the dozen
nd - L.