LUCKY NUMBERS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3135, 18 September 1922, Page 8

LUCKY NUMBERS.

The new county court .judge tor .Northamptonshire, Mr H. S. Stavekvy- ) j ill. Ims been relinking our sceptics. In this age ot doubt, he complains, people says that “there is nothing in numbers." 'let his professional and private life unite in assuring him that there is a great deal in the number 22. It haunts him. Ho can do nothing of importance without it. He was born on the 22nd. christened on the 1 22nd. married on the 22nd. and two ot his children were born on the 22nd. He was called to the Ear on the 22nd. made Recorder of 'Man bury on the 22nd. appointed county court judge on the 22nd. and that in the year 1922. Moreover. there is l no explaining this se!|iience away. Some of the events, at any rate, cannot have been brought about by the conscious' or unconscious effort of the believer in 22. So let the sceptics bo silent and allow to the judge his lucky number. Hut wo feel it right to point out that this particular number does not lit into the anicent and approved schemes of numerical divination. It is in odd and not in even numbers, a.s Virgil informs us, that the god- delight■ The repetition bf two should lie peculiarly baleful. For ihe Pythagorean doctrine is that two IVr divei'-itv. and therefore disorder, the principle of strife and evil in gener;il. Vet we understand that Mr Staxelev-Hiil considers all his adventures on the 22 1 id fortunate. There is plainly something wrong somewhere. Probably the most common notion about numbers is that three is beneficent. That the third time is lucky is one of the most familiar proverbs. In ancient mythologies many divinities have a triple attribute. Three in the Pythagorean system is perfect- harmony. the union of unity (which is one) and diversity (which is two). Three is for ever associated with two great articles in the Christian faith. Socrates in the hour ot death quoted llio line of Homer which says, “on the third day (lion shall come to fertile Plitbia,’’ So ancient, so widespread is the belief in some connection of the number three with lilt* alter death. Put then there is a school which holds that seven is the perfect number. There arc seven notes in the diatonic scale, seven days in the week, and seven is the climacteric number in diseases. To he a seventh son or, si ill better. the seventh son of a seventh son is in all folk-lore the wav to fortune. Again and again in the Old Testament we read of things being done seven limes. Put then great also is the number nine, for there were nine Muses, nine planets, nine orders of angels, and. finally, nine is three times three, the grand climacteric. Yet the tenth wave and the tenth egg. according to all ancient lore, are still greater than t lk* ninth. There is no finality in these things, and with all respect for the judge’s 22. we must needs take refuge with Sir Thomas Mrmvne and hold with him that in one numerical faith “will be found no more verity than the oi her.’’