Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1904-03-01

some aunSdTldnS VIII not even traVe
on that day. They also have a say
ing to the effect that to be merry OF
a Friday Is certain to mean weeping
on the Sunday. Other Magyar idea:
In this connection are that to sneez,
the first thing in the morning on {
Friday, when the stomach Is empty
means some great catastrophe, and
that guest arriving on that day
means a weeks distress. There 1.
popular prejudice, too, against under.
taking various household tasks, sucf
as washing linen. kneading dough, ant
lighting fires for the first time, on the
unlucky day Of the week. This super.
stitious feeling Is shared by most oI
the European peoples. and it some
times shows itself in very odd ways
A Portuguese young lady, 1t is related
had ordered a harp from England
but, unfortunately, it arrived on a Fri
day, so she sent 1t away till Saturday
though she was dying to try it," Ir
Ireland Friday Is one of the "cross
days" of the year, and decidedly un.
lucky for removals. Mr.. Edward Clod6
has recorded that a Macclesfield lodg-
ing house keeper, who had taken a CIR
from the workhouse as servant, caught
her cutting her finger nails one Fri
day. The Mortified mistress snatche6
the scissors from her crying: rs thai
what I had you from the workhouse
for; to cut your nails on Friday, and
bring bad luck to this house" Hair.
cutting on that day or on Sunday is
equally unlucky. A northern folk
rhyme says:
Fri4ay's hair and Sundays horn,
Veil meet the Mack Man on MONDAY
morn;
Or, as another version has it:
Friday cut and Sunday shorn,
Better never have been born.
But the belief in the Ill fortune as
sociated with the sixth day Of the
week is probably best known In con-
nection with seafaring men. Every
one has heard of the bold owner who
braved the terrors Of the day by hav-
ing a ship laid down and launched on
a Friday. It's captains name was Fri
LAY. It sailed on Friday, and-of
course-was never heard Of afterward!
Nowadays the superstition Is contin-
ually braved and many ships sail on
Fridays, but formerly the feeling
against the day was very strong. It
has been noticed as a curious coinci-
1ence that both the Amazon, which
was destroyed by fire about hundred
miles to the west Of the Scillies, and
the still more famous troopship, the
Birkenhead, which went down off the
East African coast, sailed from South
ampton and Liverpool respectively on
the same day, JAN. 2, 1852, and that
day was a Friday.
In 1891, when Lieutenant Peary
started on his expedition to Greenland
the Kite sailed from Sydney, Cape
Breton, at midnight on Friday, June
u. A Boston paper of the next day
had a dispatch from Cape Breton, dat
ed Friday, in which it was stated that
the original intention had been to sail
earlier but there are several old shell
backs in the ships company, and the
idea of sailing on such trip on Fri
day was too much for their nerves
They saw the captain this morning and
called his attention to the fact that II
would be a willful flying in the face
Of Providence to start today. True
old salt as he is, he agreed with them
and on his representations to Lieu
tenant Peary the start was deferred
The ballad Of "The Mermaid" tells
with sad particularly the melancholy
fate of a ship which sailed on Fri
day morn:
On Friday morn when we set sail
And our ship not far from land,
We there did espy a fair pretty maid,
With a comb and a glass In heI
hand.
This, Of course, was the beginning
of the end, which was on this wise:
Then three times round went our gal
liant ship,
And three times round went she;
For want Of a lifeboat we all went
down,
And sank to the bottom Of the sea.
The immense development of steam
traffic on all the oceans of the world
has done much to knock old sea su-
rerstitions on the head The great lin
ers which keep to their scheduled
times almost as closely as the rail-
way fiiers start from and arrive al
their various ports and destinations
with a mechanical disregard Of par
ticular days and seasons which was
naturally unknown in the older days
of sea travel. The sailors who man
The steamers believe in luck, good and
bad as firmly. probably. as their pre-
lecessors Of sailing days, but their su-
perstitions take new forms and fresh
directions. The old belief in the Ill
fortune attaching to Friday dies hard
however. 1t is still firmly held by
many an old "shellback," and yet
hourishes among the fishermen Of the
coast, not least among the canny folk
of our northern shores.-London Globe.
DIFFERENT CL1MATEs.-An Irishman
returning home from America got into