MODERN SUPERSTITION.

Southland Times, Issue 3296, 13 January 1879, Page 2

MODERN SUPERSTITION.

♦ Superstition dies hard ; and of all superstitions a belief in lucky numbers is by no means the least remarkable for vitality. From a letter written to one of our newspapers a few days ago, a belief .appears to | prevail in- Venice that "in the event of a stranger dying in one of the hotels there, the number of his room will be lucky number in the next lottery;" and the writer of the letter mentions " a singular illustration," not only of the beUef, but, unfortunately of its confirmation also. It is stated by the writer that " on the - death of the late Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell at Daniel's wellknown hotel, employes of the hotel im-mediately-subscribed to take shares in the numbers of the next lottery corresponding with the number of the two rooms occupied by the late member for Perthshire, both of which* numbers, strangely enough, were afterwards drawn prizes,'- 1 to the unspeakable grief of " a person connected with' the hotel)" who "bitterly lamented that he had been prevented by sudden illness from taking the whole of the lucky numbers, and thus realising a handsome fortune at one stroke." Some curious instances of the "deviltry" connection with certain numbers have been selected by a French journaKst, from the Historic de la Loterie in the Entr'actes of the younger Dumas. Here is one: — "A poor working j man, farrier to a regiment of cuirassiers, took into his head to "make a note of four regulation numbers branded, according to | custom, on the quarters of the remounts; he chose a number accordingly in the ! Frankfort lottery, and nearly went mad 1 with joy on winning 150,000 florins. The | first tiling, he did was -to buy as many pairs of trousers as. there are days in the year, so that •he was known all through the cavalry as \ the man with the 365 pairs of "b_eecb.es."' Here is another: — "A woman dreamed of ten numbers, wrote, them down on some little bits .of paper, stuck these tickets oh sticks, and placed them atop of some beans planted at equal intervals- in a strip of -her little garden. 'I'll take,' she said, - the number of the first 'five that ■sprouts and put them in the lottery.' In due time five came out. ' She copied the numbers and gave her son . ten francs, all the money she had in the world, saying Run and take me this sequence of five at, 1 the office round the corner.-' * All right, mother.' The son spent the money, came back and assured her that he "had done as ,he" was. told. The ' numbers "won. It is impossible to describe tHe grief: which over- . "whelmed the poor woman when she learned the truth. She went mad, and a few years afterwards her son blew out his' brains." — 1 Pall Mali Gazette, " |