WAS JACOB GROSS A FOOL ?

Otago Witness, Issue 2056, 20 July 1893, Page 17

WAS JACOB GROSS A FOOL ?

" I can't make one of a party of thirteen," he exclaimed ; " some of us will be sure to die within a week."

Thus spoke barber Jacob Gross, of Bstavia, on the 12th of November last. The occasion was a dinner party. When the guests were all seated Gross noticed that there were thirteen at table.

The others tried to laugh him out of his superstition, but he insisted that he would not eat as one of the company of thirteen. A fourteenth guest was 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 -morning -the body of a man was found in the ruins. It was the body of barber Gross. Now, this is a curious thing to happen, certainly ; but is it more than that ? Do you believe there is anything in the common notion thafc thirteen is an unlucky number P or that Friday is an unlucky day of the week P As much business is done on the 13th of the month as on any other date, and on Friday as on any other week day. You wouldn't refuse to take thirteen eggs for a dozen if your grocer insisted on it, neither do you have more bad luok on Fridays than on any other day of the. seven. No, no, it's all humbug and nonsense., Barber Gross's superstition had nothing under the sun to do with his death. Besides, he dined as one oi fourteen persons, not thirteen. Don't be silly. Understand this: Nature indulges in no senseless tricks. She kills men without hesitation for violating the laws of life, but not for assembling in groups of thirteen at dinner. Here we have a man who says he was afraid to eat ? Why, in Mercy's name, was he afraid to eat? Had he, too, some idle and foolish stuff in his head about bad luck P Not a bit. He'd have been glad enough to have eaten in a thirteen party on Friday if the dinner would only have stayed on his stomach and digested after he got it down. But it wouldn't, and his 1 fear grew out of that. He says : " I had a fulness and tightness afc the chest after meals, and such a dizziness would seize me that I could scarcely Bee. This was in the spring of 1887. I felt tired, dnll, and heavy, with a sinking sensation at thestomach. My appetite was variable, and I didn't know what to eat. In 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 that 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 I read in the Darlington Times about a person who had been handled just as I was, and had been oured by a medicine called Mother Beigel's Curative Syrup. On the strength of this I got a bottle from my brother, William Teasdale, grocer, Copley lane, and began taking it. In a short time all paiu left me, and I was able to eat and digest my food, and have since been well and strong. I still take the Syrup occasionally, and if I feel any signs of my old complaint a dose or two sets me right. lam a collier, and have worked at Woodland Colliery for over ten years. If you think the publication of this letter might be of use to others, you are at liberty to make that use of it. "Yours truly, " (Signed) Joseph Teasdale. "Copley, Butterknowle, Durham, " November sth, 1891."-

Now that Mr Teasdale is cured of his ailment, indigestion and dyspepsia, he would probably not refuse an invitation to dine with twelve other nice people any day. And in such case we stand ready to guarantee that noneof the" party will die within a week, especially if they all take a dose of Seigel's Syrup immediately on rising from the table.

Two bottles have been recently picked up afr intervals off Island Bay, Wellington, both? containing papers stating they had been thrown into the water off New Brighton at com* paratively recent dates.