QUEER FANCIES

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1587, 29 April 1887, Page 3

QUEER FANCIES

Snwp eminent specialists maintain that one-thirJ of mankind are crazy and ou, r ht to be put in asylums. Dr. Johnnon would have bpon considered insauebecmse he insisted on touching; all the gateposts he passed in London. There is a well-known literary man in London now who has the same habit. H« admits that the tendency is almost irresistible. Sometimes when ho i* approaching a gatepost which he cannot touch, because it is surrounded by other people, he will turn back and go some other way. He will stop in the hardest rain-storms to put his finger on a post. This eccentricity has got him into a predicament more than once. The owner of a house in the West End once pursued him and demanded to know why he had tampered with his gate, threatening to call the police. On one occasion, while travelling in the country he rode back a m<le to touch a gate which he had parsed and omitted to touch.

Tho late Secretary Folger of the United States House of lippreflentatives had an idea that there was a charm in the fignre 3. When a boy, and later on in life, he had a fashion of doing a thins; three times that only had to be done once. He would eat three peaches—no more and no less. If he had four he would throw onenway. If he should eat more than three he would eat twice three or three times three. If he was to ride on horseback he would mount three times before starting. Up to his death he had a way of sayinar" good day " three times to those he met, and in letters to his family he invariably wrote on three pages. Judge Folger often alluded to the idiosyncracy. He said that from his earliest remembrance he had had an overpoweriug belief in the cabalistic power of the number 3. He thought it had been transmitted to him from his rather, or that he hid re3e\ved it from a superstitious nurse. When a small boy he walked a mile to school, and He afterwards acknowledg' d that he had, on more than one day, traversed the distance three times, mak ng six miles in all, before he felt aafe in entering the schoolliMuse. It is said of Thomas Jefferson that he would never permit any person to cut

his hair. He used the scissors himself. He had a suprrstition that his strength would depart if he allowed anyone else to cut his hair. The lata Thsodore Steven3 could not pass a pin without picking it up. Furthermore, he always walked round, if necossary, t > get the point towards him before picking it up. The venerable philanthropist, Mr. W. W. Corcoran, will nots it down until he has rained the chair.