WAS JACOB GROSS A FOOL?

South Canterbury Times, Issue 7270, 25 July 1893, Page 4

WAS JACOB GROSS A FOOL?

"I oan'fc make one of the party of thirteen,” he exclaimed ; “ some of a* will be euro to die within a week."

Thus spoke barber Jaoob Gross, of Batavia, 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.

Tbe others tried to laugh him out of his superstition, but he insisted that he would not eat as one of tbe company of thirteen. A fourteenth guests was therefore added to the number.

" Now we’re safe/’ said Gross, and the festivities proceeded. Gross boarded at a hotel in Batavia. Ten day 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 carious 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 of the weekj? 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 luck on Fridays than on any other day of tbe 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 of 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 be afraid to eat ? Had he, too, some idle and foolish stuff in bis head about bad luck P Not a bit He’d 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 fear grew out of that. He says, “ I had a fullness and tightness at the cheat after meals, and such a dizziness would seize mo that 1 could scarcely see. This was in tbe spring of 1887.1 felt tired, dull, and heavy, with a sinking sensation at the stomach. My appetite was variable, and I didn’t know what to eat. In fact nothing seemed to me. There was a feeling of weight and pain over my eyes and at the back of my bead. 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 1 saw a doctor, and took various medicines; but none of them did me any good, and I fgrow worse. In June 1888, 1 read in tbe Darlington Times about a person who bad been handled just as 1 was, and had been cured by a medicine called Mother Seigel’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 abort time all the pain left me, and I was able to eat and digest my food, and have since been well and strong. 1 still take the Syrup occasionally and if I feel any signs of my old complait a dose or two sets me right. £ am 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, “ Joseph Teasdale. "Copley, Butterkoowle, Durham. “ November sth, 1891.

Now that Mr Teasdale is cured of his ailment;, indigestion and dyspepsia, he would probably not refuse an inv : tationto dine with twelve other nice people any day. And in such case we stand to guarantee that none of tbe party will die within a week, especially if they all take a dose of Seigel’s Syrup immediately on rising from tbe table.