WAS JACOB GROSS A FOOL!

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 17, 25 August 1893, Page 11

WAS JACOB GROSS A FOOL!

" I can't make one of a party of thirteen," he exclaimed ; " some of ua will be surp to die within a week." Thus Bp'-ke barber Jacob Grose, of Batavin, on the 12 h of November last. Tbe occasion was a dinner party. When tbe guests were all seated Gross noticed that there were thirteen at table. Tbe others tried to laugh him out of bis superstition , but be 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 wai 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 1 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 week? As much business is done on tbe 13 h 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 the seven. No, no, it's all humbug and nonsense. Barber Gross's superstition bad uothing under the sun to do with bis 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 viol ting the liws of life, bat not

for assembling in groups of thirteen at dinner H. re we have a msn who says he was afraid to eat, Why, in Mercy's n .me. was he afraid to eat ? Had he, too, some idle and foolish stuff in his head about bad luck ? Not a bit. He'd been glad enough to have eaten in a thirteen party on Friday if the dinner would only have s'ayed on his stomach and digested after he got it down. But it wouldn't, and his fear grew out of that. He saye, " I had a fulnezs and tightness at the chest after meals, and such a dizziness would seize me that 1 could scarcely see. This was in the spring of 1887. I 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 suit me. There was a feeling of weight and pain over the eves and at the back of my head. I became very weak, an lit was with difficulty that I Kept on with my work. In this way I continued for twelve monthp, during which time I saw a doctor, and took various medicines ; bo t none of them did m* any good, and I grew worse. In June, 1888, I read in the Darlington Tunes about a person who had been banded just as I 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 short time all pain 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 1 feel any signs of my old complaint, a dose or two sets me right, lam a collier, and have worked at th« Woodland Coll-ery for over ten years. If you thick the publication of this letter might be of use to others, you are at liberty to make use of it.— Yours truly, (Signed) Joseph Teasdalb. Copley, Butterknowle, Durban, November 5, 1801. Now that Mr Teasdale is cured of his ailment, indigestion and dyspepsia, be would probaMy not refuse an invitation to dine with twelve other nicp people any day And in such case we stand ready to guarantee that none of the party will die within a week, especially if they all take a doße of Seigel's Syrup immediately on rising from the table.