SUPERSTITIONS AMONGST ITALIANS.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1521, 5 March 1886, Page 3

SUPERSTITIONS AMONGST ITALIANS.

We have already spoken of the passi* n for mora and other forms of gambling among the Italians. The " tombola" is a much more fashionable institution, and lotteries are still employed by the kingdom ssa means of increasing the revenue, though all the more enlightened States of the world have long ago become convinced that the sums'eamed in this way by th« Treasu r y are dearly pained by the demoralisation which gambling excites throughout all classes of people. The Italian Republic*, however, applied the system to encourage the sale of merchandise —the '' lotto" of Florence and the " seminario" of Genoa being well-knownesta')li shments—a Government monoply. In modern times the matter has been simplified to the drawing of prizes and blanks in a lottery, when, of course, the ultimate gain must be on the side of the State. For weeks and months before the drawing begini everyoody is in the feverishness of expectation. " Lucky numbers" are canvassed. Monks celebrated for their skill in fixing upon them are bribed, cajoled, or frightened into telling what in their opinion is likely to be the winning figures; and only a few years ago an unhappy friar was murdered for refusing to gratify his patrons by fortelling the lucky number. Work is abandoned, or attended to in the manner in which people living in the hope of an easilyobtained fortune are likely to perform any prosaic task. Then, on the result being published, the Italians seem to prow crazy for a few days, and on their hopes being disappointed, to relapse into a corresponding condition of depression. This, however, is only a brief despondency, for immediately an effort is made to scrape together j sufficient money to pu r cbase a ticket, or half a ticket, or the thirtieth part of a ticket in the next drawing—for the lottery gambler is quite as 10-1 1 curable as the player at miigc rt noir. The devotee of this game of chance j n ay, if he desires to aid his luck by I entering into the literature of the subject, buy a guide book, containing grave rules and calculations for the purchase of lottery tickets, the object always remaining the sime—i.amely the acquisition of one with a " lucky number." The whole subject of the superstitions attaching to numbers is one of extreme interest to the student of ethnology ; and as we have more than once had occasion to touch on the curious belief, and may, before we have finished our studies of Europe, have to refer to the notion again, this may be a convenient place to discuss in brief outline the ideas which underlie this curious psychological trait. Kveryone knows that it is uulueky to be the thirteenth guest at dinner, and that, on the contrary, it is extremely fortunate to be the " seventh son of a seventh son," or even to be a seventh son at all. In i ranee it is even proposed that the State should educate the seventh sonsi The vitality of sore superstitions is such as to almost entitle them to be classed as part of that nature which, though driven forth with a pitchfork, persistently returns. Why it is unlucky to walk uuder a ladder it would not be ea«y to say, unless pethaps the ladder be connected with a gallows j but the ill-iuck of number thirteen is probably of distinctly Christian origin. That being so, it is curious to find it au r viving and in full vigour in pagan Paris. An example of this occurred so recently as 1&84 in the refusal of a householder to have his Honr marked with the fatal figures. We may, nevertheless, take it for grafted that the occupier of No. 13 Friend land Avenue had no thought of the " thirteen " at the Last Supper when he had his house renumbered " 14 bis " —or, bb we should say, 14 a —dreading the effect which the unlucky number would have on the tenants of his mansion. Nor is it likely that the Parisian " Painter of eminence," who kept his twelve guests waiting an hour for their dinner till he could secure a " quatorzieme " in the shape of genial cabman, bad half the respect for the legend that he certainly had fur the fetish. In England there are plenty of people afflicted with the same superstition. But iu France, and aparently also in the United States, the notion is in* finitely more engrained than in any other part of the world. In New York there is a club which exists for no other purpose than by running bolt

against all such ridiculous ideas to try and eradicate them out of the minds of those less emancipated from the sequelae of a darker age. The " thirteen" Club accordingly dines when only thirteen guests sit down at the table, and the members of the society form parties, each composed of thirteen individuals. There are thirteen salt-cellars on the table, and every guest, after passing under a ladder specially placed at the entrance of the banqueting ball, deliberately " tempts misfortune by spilling a portion of salt before taking his seat," this being also regarded as an especially unlucky act. Vegetables are served up in coffin-shaped diihes, and the wine is cooled in " vessels resembling deathsheads." There the proceedings of the club cease to be commendable, if the report is correct that each diner may swallow 13 bottles of wine, though, by a saving clause, his allowance may consist of a smaller quantity. Believers in the ill-luck of 13 can, however, point to one or two curious historical confirmations of their superstition. Notably, it is said that the number of Guy Fawkes conspirators was 13, and the omen had much to do with fixing the superstition in the English mind. Most likely, however, a sceptical age will find the number less or greater by two or three.—The Peoples of the World.