Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 April 1883 — THE ODIUM OF FRIDAY. [ARTICLE]

THE ODIUM OF FRIDAY.

A newspaper reporter vrho has attended thirteen executions declares that he will never attend another. It is suggested that he is now eligible as a member of the Thirteen Club, and, if he joins that organization, he may be expected to give most zealous support to the efforts of the club to remove “the odium attaching to Friday.” Having been greatly shocked and depressed by the spectacle he witnessed at the gallows in the Tombs prison-yard las* Friday, he may be supposed to be keenly sensitive to the custom which chooses Friday as the one day on which murderers most expiate their crimes. In, the per amble to their resolutions calling upon the President, the Governors and Judges of courts having power to sentence* to death to consider the propriety of selecting other days as well as Friday for the hanging of murderers, the members of the Thirteen Club express the opinion that “the superstition connected with the day of the week called Friday has been materially aided and abetted by its selection as hanging day.” In this they are undoubtedly right, and there are serious reasons why the change they advocate is to be desired.

It is a fact not to be disputed that a vast multitude of people, even in this land of boasted intelligence, are under the influence of the Friday snperstitipn. The statistics of railway travel infallibly indicate the dread which the day inspires. It is well known to all railway men that the amount of travel on Friday is less than on any other day of the week. Many travelers carefully calculate so as to reach, their destinations •before Friday, and still more refuse to begin a journey on that day. It is useless to attempt to convince the victims of the Friday superstition that no day of the week differs from another in the amount of misfortune it brings; they are seemingly deaf and blind to all that happens on Friday which is not melancholy, or at least they have no memory for other events of that day. If told that George Washington, Daniel Wel> ster, President Van Buren, President Taylor, President Pierce, President Hayes, Edward Everett, George Bancroft, Longfellow, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle and other notable men were born on Friday, they are likely to reply that Jefferson Davis was also born on Friday, that the Southern Confederacy was formed on that day, that Col. Ellsworth was shot, and that President Polk, President Lincoln, President Pierce and Horace Greeley all died on Friday. There is no reason to believe that Friday superstitions are declining; on the contrary, it is by many thought to be increasing.

If the unanimous expression of the Thirteen Club that other days of the wee ; c should bear at least their share of the odium attaching to Friday effects the desire?! change in the “reprehensible custom” which makes Friday hanging day, it is possible that it will mark the beginning of the decline in this country of the superstition which for centuries has regarded the day as unlucky. It is true that Friday was chosen for hanging because it was regarded as unlucky, rather than regarded as unlucky because it is chosen for hanging; but to change the custom as to executions would lift from it a great weight of gloom. Certainly it is a public misfortune to halve one day in every seven associated with misfortune and filled with dark foerbodings, and Governors and Judges may wisely heed the suggestion of the thirteen times thirteen members of the Thirteen Club as to making all other days but Sunday bear their share of the odium now attaching to Friday as hanging day.— New York Mail and Express.

Teeth Injured by Tobacco. I was taught thaistbe use of tobaoco in any form was nt>t injurious to the teeth, and in all the literature of the profession I have found nothing alluding to what I desire to present to th® profession, namely, the evil effects upon the teeth caused by the oonstant use of tobaoco. My attention was first drawn to this evil one year ago this month, when I was filling the teeth of a patient who has for years been in the habit of smoking and ohewing a great deal of tobacco.

The injurious effects are not very noticeable until the person has been using the weed for about fifteen years, but the use of the pipe to excess will show its injurious effects in less time. Tobacco chewing is the most injurious, as the tobaoco acts as an irritant in two ways, mechanically and by its properties—mechanically by particles of the tobacco being forced between the gums and the teeth. We have proofs of the irritable effects of tobacco in sfiuff. The direct effect of using tobacco is the recession of the gums of all the teeth, but more especially those on the side of the mouth used most in chewing the tobacco. The sequel to this recession may cause the loss of one or more teeth, by a diseased condition of the pulp, resulting from its being irritated by having the neck of the tooth and the root exposed to thermal changes in food and in the air we breathe. Exostosis and calcification may result. Tobacco chewers’ teeth wear away on the grinding surface rapidly, oaused by the gritty substances naturally entering into the tobacco. The gums recede and are red and congested, and underneath the gum a narrow line of dark tartar is nearly always present, and particles may be found still further toward the apex of the tooth.—Southern Dental Journal.