A QUESTION OF NUMBERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 225, 21 September 1921, Page 7

A QUESTION OF NUMBERS.

(To the Editor.) j Sir, —One is inclined to agree with Mr. J. Liddell Kelly in his objection to Bibli- i cal prophecy being treated in a flippant i spirit. Opinions are constantly changing, and sneering denunciations by Rationalists have frequently to be modified in the face of subsequent facts and of scientific research. I cannot help feeling something more than an academic interest in the dread number G6O. for I happen to have been for years the possessor of a post office box with that number. Some people might consider it as clearly the '"mark of the Beast." but I have so far chanced my luck and kept it. But the number 1.1 is almost universally regarded as unlucky, and this seems to receive confirmation from the following incontrovertible facts: When I purchased a motor car some years ago the City Council kindly gave mc the jegistered number 1313. (Note the previous allocation of G!i(i to the same person.) On the manager of the garage making a remark about the "unlucky" number, I rashly said that if it had been one 13 I might have refused it, but that with 1313 one would counteract the other. lie reckoned it would be doubly unlucky. Tn the sequel I rather fancy he had the best of the argument. Anyway, soon after, on December 13, 1913. car No. 1313 ran over a dog whose registered number was 13, and the compensation case that ensued was set down for hearing before Mr. Cutten. S.M.. on January 13, which month is the one next to the twelfth. I wrote only one letter in connection with the incident, to the Traffic Inspector, and months afterwards, owing to a sudden thought. I turned it up and found it was copied on page 13 of my letter book! But these were mere incidents. What happened in connection with that unfortunate ear generally? Every driver came to grief. One nearly killed a child and ran against a gate post as his first start: another charged and smashed the double gates on his return home; a third turned the ear over an embankment, damaged the late Mr F. J. Hammond severely, and put his wife into hospital for weeks; a fourth fell down on the floor of the car in a faint on the Ponsonby Road one afternoon on his first trip, and his distracted wife could.only be informed by the police late at night. The car by this time lis,l acquired a most sinister reputation. Tin last driver told mc lie would*, not keor the job on at £20 a week. T do not blame him. There was no help for it : I had to change the number to s ' the car. The purchaser made I hat tin first condition and then paid a g0,,.1 price. Eighteen months after it wantoning "like a sewing machine." as tin new owner said, and added: "It's changing the number did it." I believe it istill doing good service delivering groceries. What became of the fateful number I don't know, but it is no use asking mc again to have anything to do with 13. T am "not taking any." thank you! I hope, though, that "G(io" will play the game like a gentleman. It really is a nice, full-bodied, well rounded sort of a number, come to think of it. and any unpleasant insinuations against it are' quite out of place. But if I should become bankrupt at any time, or anything unpleasant of that sort. I think I should chancre my box number as a start. —I am. etc.. •T. MAR.TORIBANKS STEELE. 1 Mt. Eden, September I\. I'- 1 - 1 -