Was Jacob Gross a Pool P

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 2501, 10 August 1893, Page 4

Was Jacob Gross a Pool P

"I can't make one or a party of thirteen," he exclaimed ; "some of us -will be sur§ to die within a week." TlmsVspoke barber Jacob Gross, o? Batavia,\ra 12th of November last. The occasion was a dinner party. When the guests were all seated Gro3B noticed tbat there were thirteen at table. The others tried to laugh him out of his stperstition, but he insisted that he would not eat as one of the company of thirteen. A fourteenth guest wa9 therefore added to the number. " Now we're safe,"" said Gross, and the festivities proceeded. Gross boarded at a hotel in Batavia Ten days later the hotel was burned to the ground. The next morniDg the body of a man was found in the ruins. It was the body of barber Gross. Now, thiß is a curious thing to happen, certainly ; but is it more than that ? Do you believe there is anything in the common notion that thirteen is an unlucky number? or that Friday is an unlucky day o£ the week? As much business is done o i the 13th of t he month as on any other date, and on Friday as en any other week day. You woulda't refuse | to take thirteen e^gs for a d zen if your grocer insisted on it, neither do you have more bad luck on Fridays than on any other of the seven. No, no, its all humbug and nonsense. Barber Gross's ! superstition Kad notiiirK nader the sun to do with his death. Besides, he dined as one ot fourteen petaouß, not thkteen. Don't be Billy. { Understand this : Nature indulges in no senseless tricks. She kills men without j hesitation for violating: the laws of life, but not for assembling the groups of thirteen at dinner. Here we have a m^n j who says he was afraid to eat. Why, in Mercy's name was he afraid to eat? Had he, too, some idle and foolish btuff in bis head about bad luck? Not a bit. He'd been glad eriough to have eaten in a thirteen party on Friday if the dinner would only have stayed on his stomach and digested after he had got it down. But it wouldn't, and his fear grew out of that. lie says, "I had a fullness and tightness at the chest after meals, and such a dizziness would seize me that I could scarcely see. This was in spring of 1887. I felfc tired, dull, and heavy, with a sinking sensation at the sto*nacn. 'My appetite was variable, and I didn J fc know what to eat. I fact nothing seemed to suit me. There was a feeling of weight and pain over the eyes and at the back of my head. I became very weak, and it was with difficulty I kept on with my work. In this way I continued for twelve months, during which time I saw a doctor and took various medicines ; but none of them did me any good, and I grew worse. In June 1888, 1 read in the Darlington Times about a person who had been handled just as I was, and had V>een cured by a medicine called Mother Seigel's Curative Syrup. On tbe strength of this I got a bottle from my brother William grocer, Copley Lane, and began taking it. In a short time all pain left mp, and I was able to oat and digest my food, and have since been well and strong. I still cake the Syrup occasionally and if I feel any i signs c£ nay old complaint, a dose or I two sets me right. I am a colliec, and ( have worked at Woodland Colliery for over ten years. If you think the public- i ation of this ]etterrai^±it be of use to others, you are at liberty to make that use of it. l< Yours truly, (Signed) " Joseph Teasdale. " Copley, Butterknow!e, Durham, "November sth, 1891." Now that Mr. Teasdale ij cured of his ailment, indigestion and dyspepsia, he would probably not refuse an invitation to dine with twelve other nice people any day. And m such case we stand ready to guarantee that none of the party will die within a week, especially if they all take a dose of Seigel's Syrup immediately ou rising from the table.