Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1899 — ARE PENNIES UNLUCKY? [ARTICLE]

ARE PENNIES UNLUCKY?

A Dislike of Our Smallest Coin la Quite Prevalent. A New Orleans paper the other day gave an account of a conductor on one of the street cars who refused to accept five coppers as fare from a passenger. Conductors in New York city have not quite reached that point, but if looks could kill many a poor woman who laboriously hunts up the stray pennies in her purse and calmly tenders them to the waiting conductor would have been dead long ago. Why are conductors so averse to receiving pennies? The principal reason is that pennies will not be taken from men at the auditor’s office. Conductors cannot turn them in as part of their receipts. s Many colored persons consider pennies unlucky. I saw an old southern mammy remonstrate with a conductor because he gave her five pennies in change, and when he refused to take them back threw them on the seat and left them behind her when she left the car. Many actors and actresses also look upon pennies a» bringing them bad luck and often throw them away.—N. Y. Herald.