ODD NUMBERS.

Evening Post, Volume LXI, Issue 16, 19 January 1901, Page 2 (Supplement)

ODD NUMBERS.

Nobody has ever satisfactorily accounted for the popular partiality for oddnumbers. "This is the third time," ex- : claims Falstalf, on the occasion of a crisis in hia relations >with one- of the Merry Wives of Windsor, "I hope good luck lies in odd numbers; they say there's a divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death." And it is scarcely necessary to say that the belief is much older than Sir John Falstaff. Three, seven, and nine appear to have been the favourite numbers all the world over. The ancients had three fates, three furies, and three graces. Neptune's trident had three proegs, Jupiter's thunderbolt three forks, and Cerberus three heads. A British crowd shows its joy by three cheers on any ordinary occasion, and, w"hen extrenfely excited, as, for instance, outside Mrs. Baden - Powell's house on Mafekiug night, by three times three. We have three estates of the realm, a man who accepts a bill has three days' grace, and three persons congregated together to make a, riot. 3hakespe;vre was well aware that ho must have neither more nor less than three witches in "Macbeth," and that the brindled cat must mew thrice, and our popular folklore insists upon three merry men, three blind mice, and three wise men of Gotham. Three meals a day is the Englishman's usual scale of feeding, and, if his drinks run to a larger and more indefinite number, they are at any rate frequently obtained at' the sign of the Three Compasses, the Three Jolly Sailors, the Three Bells, the Three Tuns, or the Swan with Three Necks. —Globe.

The reflections of the illuminations in Sydney, especially the fireworks display, were distinctly visible on the Blue Mountains. It is stated that 17,447 tons of sugar were manufactured by the Colonial Sugar Company at Harwood, Broadwater, and Condong Mills during the past season. '