The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1908-03-01
ROOM t3 NO JOKE.
Hotel Managers Never Cater to the
Hoodoo Number.
milwaukee Sentinel.)

"A reference a while back TO the
subject of rooms numbered IS in ho-
tells had no pertnence so far as this
house is concerned" remarked the
manager of a Washington hotel.
There is nothing numbered Is in the
place, rot even a bellboy-
What do l think of the Is supersti-
ton? Wen, while it's not material
what 1 think. I'll say this: You've ad-
dressed that question to a nOn-supeT-
stitious individual, who, nevertheless,
is a victim Of prejudice, through eX-
perience against the number b.
THE experiences were various. For
nearly ten years l was head clerk of a
hotel in another city One of the
finest rooms in the house-perhaps the
finest-was room No. IS.
The proprietor was a violent man,
who was against any and all forms Of
superstition. His particular detesta-
the one attaching to the number 13. 1t
was to indicate his hostility toward
the Is superstition that he saw to it
that the room numbered Is was one of
the most desirable in the house
When ] went to work at the hotel
the head clerk, whom l displaced, told
me about this
I don't want you ever to mention
this to the old man, it would only get
him unnecessarily excited, my pre-
decessOr said to me, but don't you
give that 13 room to anybody you
know and like
I received his warning rather light
heartedly. l did not take much stock
in the - thing myself. On the day
that / took my new billet the room
was vacant. But that evening a bril-
6al couple. wealthy, drifted along.
The young man wanted the best in
the house. and room 13 happened to
be the best available. So 1 put the
pair into that room.
"On the following afternoon, while
the, bridegroom was out, the bride
was curling her hair, using. a gas jet
tOngs. She was waving her black
hair when the curling tOngs slipped
out of her hand and fell under the
collar of her room jacket
THE entire floor was aroused by the
young woman's screams. The cham
bermaids found her rolling on the
floor in agony. The hot curling irons
were still soaring the flesh on her
back. She had to be removed to a
hospital Sadly dishgured, she did
not recover from the shock to her sys-
ltIl lbI EtdiG.
"a few weeks after that a railroad
official with a national reputation
came along when the house was we'll
filed, and the night clerk, not being
able to give the official his usual ac-
commOda tons, put him in room No
13. The railroad man was found with
a bullet in his head on the following
morning. There was, it is true, a pis-
tol with one chamber fired lying be
side him i'm the morning. But nobody
at the time could figure out whether
been murdered. There was no con-
reason why he should have
taken his life. Nobody knows yet
whether he did or not.
BY that time that IS room was on
my nerves. But there was nothing
could do about it, knowing, as / did,
the crusty proprietors antipathy to
the Is superstition.
wei not long afterward, a
young woman from New
York, whose fiance had recently died
under the knife in a hospital, reached
town, Ostensibly- TO attend to some
The Is room was the only one l had
at the moment that would answer her
requirements. | was not familiar
with any of the details of her history
at the time, and, as she seemed a self
contained young woman, ] could not
figure out how anything could happen
20 her in that room.
The young woman spent most of
the night writing letters. She lay
down on the bed and took enough poi
son to kill a dozen women.
THAT year the summer business
was light and for some time 1 was
able TO keep that 13 room vacant, but |
when the fall rush began 1 had to |