LUCK OF HORSE-SHOES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 307, 28 December 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

LUCK OF HORSE-SHOES.

Butler, in "Hudibras," says of his conjuror, that he could "Chase evil spirits away by dint Of sickle, horse-shoe, hollow flint." Aubrey tells us that "It is a thing very common to nail horse-shoes on the thresholds of doors; which is to hinder the power of witches that enter the house. Most of the houses of the West End of London have the horse-shoe on the threshold. It should be a horse-shoe that one finds." He adds, "Under the porch of Stanfield Church, in Suffolk, I saw a tile, with a horse-shoe upon it, placed there for this purpose, that one would imagine that holy water alone would have been sufficient. lam told there are many more instances." In Monmouth Street, probably one of the localities alluded to by Aubrey (then a fashionable neighbourhood), many horse-shoes nailed to the thresholds were to be seen in 1797; in 1813, Sir Henry Ellis counted seventeen horse-shoes in Monmouth Street; in 1852, only eleven remained. It was once thought lucky to find old" iron, but more especially a horse-shoe Nelson who was of a superstitious turn, had great faith in the luck of a horse-shoe, and one was nailed to the mast of the ship Victory. "Lucky Dr. James" attributed the success of his fever-powder to his finding a horse-shoe. When Dr. James, then a poor apothecary, had invented the fever-powder, he was introduced to Newbery, of St. Paul's Churchyard, to vend the medicine for him. One Sunday morning, as James was on his way to Newbery's country house at Vauxhall, in passing over Westminster Bridge, seeing a horse-shoe lying in the road, and considering it to be a sign of good luck, he put the shoe into his pocket. As Newbery was a shrewd man, he became James' agent for the sale of the fever-powder; whilst the doctor ascribed all his success to the horse-shoe, which he subsequently adopted as the crest upon his carriage.