Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 April 1878 — That Fatal Number. [ARTICLE]

That Fatal Number.

At Wyoming, N. Y., the old superstition about the fatal number 13 is accepted an a cardinal doctrine of faith. Last season a charming young lady, who had recently graduated from a seminary, visited some friends at their summer residence, “Hillside.” One day, on returning from a ride, she found twelve persons at the table, and, as she took her seat, one of her friends reminded her that she made the unlucky thirteenth, and laughingly suggested that she had better sit at a side-table by herself. The suggestion was unheeded, and, a few days afterward, she was taken sick and was soon on her death-bed. The day before her death her physician occupied her seat and happened to be the thirteenth at the table. A few days afterward a brother of the hostess, a Southern planter, entered the diningroom, where twelve men were seated. The guests begged him to break the spell by occupying a seat at another table, but he laughed at their nervousness and persisted in remaining with them. On his way home, a few weeks later in the season, he was taken sick and died. Quite recently, moreover, the physician who was in attendance upon the young girl, and who was himself the ill-starred thirteenth, has died in Elmira.