The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1918-04-20
Soldiers in Great War
Haze Many Superstitions

OF splitting WQeu luoy fancy lAcy
smell drains. This nowadays comes
under the bacterial myth, and is, of
course, ridiculous; the original idea
was a sacrifice to the gods.
But to return to the British navy
Today trawler-men spit into the
mouth of the first fish OF the fishing,
as an offering to the sea god. They.
also spit upon their long lines, into
their travis. and into their drift nets,
flor a similar reason. Pliny himself
states that splitting was observed in
giving shrewder blow to the enemy;
hence We find pugilists splitting into
their fists, and hence we find gun
ners in the British navy doing the
| very thing that Pliny wrote about
and thus appealing to the god of
battles.
find good many minor supersti
tfons. Until this war all the odd num-
bers except thirteen, were supposed to
be lucky, especially seven and nine.
Now, however, all odd numbers are
unlucky, SO unlucky that thirteen has
no longer any distinction.
Friday is no longer an unlucky day,
but Sunday is very lucky day on
which to go into battle White heath
er. once sacred to love and offers OF
marriage. the finder being certain to
marry within the year, is now a pos
session Of all around luck, and piece
tucked away In the bands Of the cap
saves the wearer from fatal wound.
There is strong feeling of fatalism
among the soldiers of all armies. There
is feeling that if the bullet is not
made for you. you will come through
all right. One Frenchman told me
that he knew he would come through
all right, for when he first went in, a
shrapnel shell burst in front Of him
at the Marne and large piece Of 1t
came down at his feet. He picked it
up and found his initial on 1t. 1T was
my piece of shrapnel all right" he
said, "and if 1t didn't get me, none
other can" And, in fact, he has been
through the thick of number Of bat
ties since then, but he has never been
wounded!
One informed Tommy here tells me
that his battalion regards the military
cross as an omen Of i'll luck, and views
with alarm any recommendation to
bestow the military cross on any mem
Der OF the battalion. 1t is considered
a death warrant. and the winner is
'commiserated and condoled with, for
none in the battalion have worn it
longer than a few weeks at most.
Whether officers or men. all winners
OF the military cross in the battalion
have been killed in action.
The black cat is an omen of the
greatest good luck in all the armies.
To hear the cuckoo calling before
breakfast is. in the British army, a
sign of bad luck.
From British merchant tailor, sent
here from Germany, I learn that the
submarine warfare has renewed the
demand for cauls as charm against
loss of life at sea As result the
sums paid by seamen for these strange
charms today are nearly what they
were couple of centuries ago. A cauI
Is the mem brane which sometimes in
closes the head of new born infant,
and from quite remote times it has
been regarded as a luck bringer.
It used to be the belief that child
born with caul" would turn out
very fortunate, and that the caul itself
would bring luck to those who pur-
chased it. Even lawyers used to buy
them at high prices, as a means of
making them eloquent. but their chief
virtue always has lain in the fact that
they were supposed to be an infallible
amulet against death by drowning
Hence in the seventeenth and eigh-
demand for them in the British navy