, 1904-03-22
SOME sUPERsTlTIoNs
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GIVEN BY BILL NYG.
When you come to mak a list of all
the singular superstitions OF those you
know. it is wonderful how many in
telligent people are the victims of this
most unreasonable whims.
For instance. We are acquainted with
a lady who is well educated, and far
above the average class of those who
constitute the great army of the super
stitious, and yet she never allows a
breakfast to be prepared in her mouse
on washday Of anything but giblets of
Goldfish and titbits of superanuated
grub left over during the preceding
week. Her husband has struggled to
convince her Of the utter absurdity OF
this practice. and tried to show her
that there Is nothing to 1t. but all of
his efforts have been worse than use
less.
A friend of ours. too. vho is a col
lege graduate, and who boots most of
tho follies of the day, is still so super
s~tltious on one point that he is a slave
to his singular whim. He will not pass
up the same side of the street on which
a creditor OF his is coming down. He
says he never has good luck if he sees
a creditor over his shoulder, or meets
one face to face. Some are supersti-
tious about white horses, owls, and so
forth, but this man says he never met
a creditor but right away after that
he heard of some one being dunned.
Another acquaintance of ours is so
completely under the control of an old
woman's notion that he calls down up
on himself time and again the scorn
of his friends. He seems to think that
there is something fatal about seeing
a contribution box on Sunday. He,
therefore, gets up and rushes out of
church just before the collection is
taken up, rather than bring disaster
down upon himself and family.
Still another friend of ours, and who
Genes into the Boomerang Office every
few days, has a superstition that if
he were to spit in the cuspidore he
wouldn't live to get home. Some day
he will find that he had better reverse
the theory, or he will meet with the
most horrible death that has ever &C.
Cured in this region.
The most matter-of-fact man we
know, and one who would be consider
ed the very last to be affected by these
old traditions, says he don't care for
new moons over his left shoulder,
bowling dogs at midnight, or any thing
Of that kind; but when he sees a wo-
man with a big stone chasing a mool-
ey COW, he Is always sure to hear of
a new-made grave.
1t Is said that even President Gar
field has his little peculiarities in this
line. When W were boys together in
Ohio, he would never get into a water
melon patch at night where there was
a bulldog. He said that whenever
there was a bulldog everything was
sacred. So superstitious was he about
this style of bird, Garfield said to lis
once that he would just as soon rob
his mothers grave a. to enter the
hallowed precincts where tn bulldog
reigns.
Then he showed us a pair of over
alls with a seat to them that looked
as though 1t had sat down on a buzz
saw.
James G. Blaine has a superstition
about kicking an old felt hat on the
LIST of April.
Carl Schurz has a moral dread OF
holding a post mortem examination
on a live hornet.
Attorney General MacVeagh, who is
bald, will never brush his hair with
the brush that the hired girl has Dor
rowed from his dressing case. He
says that the long hair tickles his
scalp. and the girl is almost sure to
lose her situation. 1t is a bad sign.
Roscoe Conkling never chews his
W tobacco. He thinks that il he
were to do SO he would come to want,
and he would rather. II anyone suffers,
that 1t should be his friends.
General Hancock is so superstitious
about seeing a dark horse over his
right shoulder that 1t throws him into
cOnyulsiOns.