Rensselaer Republican, Volume 15, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1883 — SIGNS AND SUPERSTITIONS. [ARTICLE]

SIGNS AND SUPERSTITIONS.

Old Saws and Modern Signs. Omens Far the Superstitions. . “Matrons who toss the cap and ass The grounds of fate in grounds of tea.** It has been said that no human being exists who is without superstition, and often the greater the intellect, the higher the intelligence, the more unaccountable and puerile the belief h l signs and fatalities. Selden remarks that they who are against superstition often times run into it on the wrong side, and adds, If I wear all oolors but black then I am superstitions in not wearing blaok.” One man laughs at another because he wears his shirt turned wrong Bide out for luck, but the man who laughs will not start on a journey on Friday or cross a funeral on its way to the grave or see the new moon over his left shoulder. We none of us believe in signs, and it is only by way of joke we allude to the bad omen of 13 sitting together at table,, of being unlucky if we spill the salt, of expecting a stranger if we drop a fork and the point sticks in the floor, or expect company if the rooster crows on the door-step. It is said that all signs fail in dry weather, but who ever saw a cat wash her face that it did not rain soon after? The fact is, we are all, every one of us, full of queer, quaint ideas natural or inherited, idiosyncrasies of character which makes us individual, things that we do believe and don’t believe all in one breath. Four people meet and shake hands across—a rare occurrence indeed—and some one of the four exclaims “there will be a wedding. ” You mention * that you dreamed of some one dead and the suggestion is at once made that you will hear good news of the living. If you rock the cradle when the baby is not in it it is a sign of death. If a door creaks suddenly that will be news from a land; if your right hand itches you will get money; if your nose itches it is a sign that you will kiss a fool; if you are single and stumble in going up stairs you will not be married this year. There are peculiar sensations which betoken bad luck. A shiver of the scalp denotes that some one has walked over the spot where your grave is to be. If yaur ears burn it is a sign that some one is talking unkindly about you; personal signs are more frightful than those of inanimate things. Unlucky Fridays are numerous, but there is hardly any day of the week that is not unlucky to some one, but give a dog an ill name and hang him! Friday is not in good odor, perhaps because it is hangman’s day. Young people do not care to get married on Friday. Actors are as a rule highly educated and accomplished men, but they are very superstitious. If the first ticket to a new play is sold to a cross-eyed man, good-bye to luck; that piece will never succeed. When the “Black Crook” was first played in New York, at Niblo’s Garden, a lady with a'small child by the hand was the first one to enter the theater. Mr. Wheately, the manager, turned the lady round, forced her into the hall, and let several men rush in; and then he mode a polite apology and escorted her himself to her seat.

“There would have been nothing but failure,” he said, “if a woman had been the first to enter—it’s bad luck; afways admit a man first.” Sailors, gamblers and colored people are very superstitious. The weather is almost controlled by superstition. The goose bone is as much believed in by farmers as if it really by its spots made the ensuing season. Tne ground-hog is a pet superstition, for no fine can authentically state that the little animal comes out of its hole in mid-winter to make the meteorological observations attributed to it. The crackling of a wood fire, like the crunching sound of footsteeps on the snow, is supposed to indicate an immediate fall of snow. On the walls of old chimneys back of a wood fire there will appear luminous spots composed of tiny sparks, which are called “wild geese,” and these intimate rain. It is a'popular belief among farmers that pork which is not killed at the right time of the moon will curl up and act ugly in the pan when cooking; also, that you can see the exact shape of the cow’s hoof in a bowl of milk. There are many good people who if they once leave home and forget something which compels them to go back will always sit down to avert the bad luck which must inevitably follow if they omitted this. To call one member of a family by the name of another who is dead is believed to be very unlucky. Some are fortunate in possessing lucky numbers or days; seven is popularly believed to be a lucky number and the seventh son can cure all diseases, including king’s evil. Tuesday is generally believed to be a fortunate day. Evil days were very prominent in the Saxon calendar and at one time there were so nlany that the whole year seemed to be endangered. The southern people are fond of Tuesday, and it is their great national fete day—mardi gras. In Lidia it is considered unlucky to marry on a rainy day, and “Happy is the bride that that the sun shines on.” On the contrary, “Blessed are the dead that the rain rains on.” Dean swift in a letter to Sheridan, rhymes Thursday with “Cursed day.” The queerest reason for the existence of an unlucky day is given by the Malays, who avoid the 24th day of the new moon, because on that day Mohammed lost his front teethl