STRANGE PARISIAN SUPERSTITIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15237, 26 February 1913, Page 11

STRANGE PARISIAN SUPERSTITIONS.

The superstitions of the Paris midinettcs, or workgirls, are at times very strange and amusing. Hero are a few of the quaintest of them. "If "you- see a municipal guard on horseback you should rais; ; your left foot and spit on the ground three times, then you will hear good news." "If you put:on your stockings inside out it means, a present,. But do not put it on the right way when you find cut your mistake, or someone will be rude to you."

"Your husband will be the first young man who gives you lilies of the 'valley in May." "if you find a thread on your hair, note its colour. A white thread means that a. fair young man is thinking of you. A black 'thread means a dark young man. Another colour means red hair." The Paris washerwomen consider dropping an iron a sign of marriage. Thts midinettes look on it as a sign of dismissal. Whenever a wedding dress is being made in a Paris workshop each of the workgirls plucks a hair from her head, and one of the hairs, picked up at hazard, is sewn into the hem. The owner of the hair firmly believes that she will marry before her companions. If the bowl of pins on the work-table- be upset _ and all the pins fall out of it, it is a sign that hard work is in the offing. But if a few pins remain in the bowl it means a quarrel in the workshop. When this happens the girls throw the remaining pins over their left shoulders, repeating three times in succession the words, "I do not care."