Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-05-12
IN ROOM NUMBER Is

A seasoned hotel clerk from Baltimore,
who recently went to work at a Washing
ton hosiery Is congratulating himself be-
cause there is no No. 13 room in that house
For the nine years during which was
head clerk OF a certain Baltimore hotel
and 1t was and is pretty good hotel-one
of the finest rooms in the house was No.
49, says the clerk.
THE owner Of that house was born stub
born. He was q shrewd. but very testy
and positive man of Quaker antecedents.
He was born with an intense dislike for all
superstitiors. and when he got into the
hotel business ne was particularly opposed
to the prevalence of the thirteen super
stition. To- show his hostility to that SUI
perstition he saw to 1t that the thirteen
room IN hts house was one of the most
desirable In the entire plant
THE head clerk whom displaced at that
house told me about this when l went to
work at the hotel.
You needn't ever say anything about
1t to the old man. he said to me. for 1t
would only make him boil over but don't
give that thirteen room to anybody you
know and like,
He didn't give me any details. and I
took the warning rather gayly. The room
was vacant on the day that I went to
work there. That evening bridal couple
from Pittsburg came along. The young
man wanted the best accommodations to
be had, of course. The thirteen room hap
pened to be the best, and I put the pair
in that room. On the following afternoon.
while the bridegroom was out, his bride
was curling her hair using gas jet by
the dresser to heat the curling tongs. She
was crimping her back hair when the hot
curling tongs slipped out OF her hand and
fell under the collar of her combing Jacket.
The young woman's screams aroused the
entire floor The chambermafds found her
rolling on the floor in agony, the hot curling
tOnPS still ring the flesh of her back.
She was badly burned and had to be taken
to hospital.
"a week or so after that couple from
San Francisco, with q two-year-old boy,
came along, late at night, and the night
clerk put them In thirteen. The boy
swallowed a big brass pin the following
day. The pin stuck in the chiid's throat.
and he had to be operated on by
squad Of Baltimore surgeons. They got the
pin out. but the operation caused the child
to lose the use of his voice for long
time
mot long after that the superintendent
of a railroad running into Baltimore took
that thirteen room one night after din
ner of officers of the road and having
dined pretty well. the superintendent left
one OF the gas burners partly turned on
when he went to bed. He was found, black
in the face and all but dead. in the morn
Ing, and had to be hustled off to hos
pltal to be brought back to life.
The thirteen room was beginning to get
on my nerves by that time. but there was
nothing 1 could do about 1t, knowing as
did the proprietor's violent antipathy to
the thirteen superstition
"A few weeks later q wealthy young
woman from Harrisburg, whose fiance had
died under the knife In Baltimore hos
pital few months before. came to Bal
tmore, ostensibly to do some shopping.
The thirteen room was the only one l had
fitting her requirements I knew nothing
OF her history then, and. as she seemed
TO be self-contained young woman,
couldn't figure out anything happening to
her. She spent most of the night in writ
Ing letters. and then she lay down on the
bed and took enough carbollc acid to kill
a dozen women.
THE summer business was light that
year, ana Tor three months after the suicide
OF the Harrisburg girl I contrived to keep
that thirteen room vacant. On the very
first day when the autumn rush began
had to put anew York couple in there The
man got to the room triffe intoxicated
that evening, and his wife upbraided him.
She had been doing some fancy work when
he entered the room, and she had a small
ing reproached the husband made a men,
acing move toward her. She put out the
hand that held the scissors to protect her
self from what she thought would be
blow. The points of the scissors blade
penetrated her husbands right eye and
ruined 1t. A few years later l heard, the
mans other eye, through sympathy with
the destroyed one, went wrong. and left
a
broken heart over what she had done, and
the man Is now alone. sightless, and a fig
ure of misery.
"All Of this time the stubborn old pro-
prietor of the hotel was storming at any
body who even dared to hint that the
thirteen room was a hoodoo and every
time anything happened in the room he
declared that 1t was a coincidence merely
calculated to impress the intellect of i'm
beetles. but only a coincidence for all that
He declared that he would tear the house
down before he would yield to a beggarly
superstition by taking the number from
the door of room thirteen.
Il couldn't begin to tell about all of the
Wretched occurrences that happened in
room thirteen of that hotel during the
next four years. But l Will venture to go
on record that not one out Of three occu-
pants of that room escaped. Three different
cases of smallpox occurred In the room
and all three of the victims died in the
Baltimore pest house. One of them was
wealthy French-Canadian, another banker
from Memphis and the third q young wom-
an from Omaha, who was buying her we'd
ding trousseau In the east The room had
to be thoroughly fumigated and completely
refurnished each time, of course, but still
the stubborn old proprietor would go up
IN the air and all but foam at the mouth
at the very suggestion that the number
thirteen room had nything to do with the
rooms bad luck.
Then the proprietor of the hotel died
suddenly, and the man who succeeded him
In the management of the hotel listened to
our representations and had the thirteen
number removed from the door, the room
being referred to as ParIor A from that
time. Nothing unusual happened In the
room from that time till left the house
l m not an easy mark for the generality of
superstitions, but l have been Shown in
the case of that room thirteen business,
and I'm mighty glad there's no thirteen
room in the house where 1 am now"