UNLUCKY THIRTEEN

Evening Star, Issue 19760, 10 January 1928, Page 8

UNLUCKY THIRTEEN

EVENTS MOCK SUPERSTITION, If there is anybody who has a more complete contempt for the superstition that thirteen is au unlucky number it certainly a uniformed porter - at tho Savoy Hotel, London. When it was discovered at a theatrical dinner party there that the guests numbered thirteen he was invited to lake his place, and thus placated the Blind God of Chance. Ho was certainly not a skeleton at tue feast, being the biggest man there, and he is quite prepared to placate Fate again in the same manner and to dine with the stars in their courses. Many people believe that this thirteen . . ~.C n, 1.11 oup per, ir.,.u which Judas Iscariot rose to betray the Master. Tho superstition holds in high quarters. Mr Winston Churchill regards it with serious respect. He believes in talismans and touching wood, and all sorts of the most interesting things in life. When - the King was shooting with Sir Joseph Ward, just before the war, it was discovered that tho party sat down thirteen to luncheon. An estate agent was immediately called in, and he ate his lunch with all the keener zest from the proud consciousness that ho had possibly averted a republic. The London and North-Eastern Railway not long ago abolished the number thirteen in the sleeping berths of their night trains. Some of the transatlantic liners avoid the same pregnant number in their berths. A stout-hearted American, Mr John Parham, of New York, spent every thirteenth day of the month in bed for a whole year. He was blinded once on the thirteenth; later, on a similar date, he broke his arm; and a month after that, on the same date, his house caught fire. The only thing he refused to do was to decline to take thirteen guineas instead of twelve from a superstitious debtor. Judged by this test, which of us would be superstitious President Wilson defied tho superstition, and gave, an Armistice Night dinner to Thirteen guests! He was dead before the next Armistice Night came round.