Interesting Anecdotes from the Past

[rajnish manga]

Lucky and Unlucky Days

Unlucky Days.—The superstition respecting unlucky Friday is well known. Some cynical bachelors say it is unlucky because named for a woman. Monday was also so named. I can find no account of this superstition until after the first century A. D. It is said that our Saviour was crucified on Friday—a day of fear and trembling, of earthquakes and divers remarkable phenomena; but that day is now as uncertain as the day of his birth, in the various changes of the calendar, heathen naming of the days to suit their notions, and the great uncertainty of chronology. No doubt Christ arose from the dead on the then first day of the week, and was crucified the third day before the resurrection; but what day of our present week who can tell? If on Friday, it should be counted far from an unlucky day. Sailors are particularly superstitious as to sailing on Friday, notwithstanding Columbus sailed on Friday, and discovered America on that day.

The French believe in unlucky Friday. Lord Byron, Dr. Johnson, and other authors and poets, are said to have so believed. Shakspeare, Scott, Goldsmith, Bacon, Sir Francis Drake, Napoleon, and many other great men, were pretty thoroughly tinged with superstition; the latter, it is said, believed in “luck,” or destiny.

[rajnish manga]

Lucky and Unlucky Days

The future of children is yet believed to depend much upon the day of the week on which they are born.

“Monday’s child is fair in face;
Tuesday’s child is full of grace;
Wednesday’s child is full of woe;
Thursday’s child has far to go;
Friday’s child works hard for its living;
Saturday’s child is loving and giving;
And a child that’s born on Christmas day
Is fair, and wise, and good, and gay.”

[rajnish manga]

Superstition of a Kiss

The monks of the middle ages—great theorists—divided the kiss into fifteen distinct and separate orders.
1. The decorous or modest kiss.
2. The diplomatic, or kiss of policy.
3. The spying kiss, to ascertain if a woman had drank wine.
4. The slave kiss.
5. The kiss infamous—a church penance.
6. The slipper kiss, practised towards tyrants.
7. The judicial kiss.
8. The feudal kiss.
9. The religious kiss (kissing the cross).
10. The academical kiss (on joining a solemn brotherhood).
11. The hand kiss.
12. The Judas kiss.
13. The medical kiss—for the purpose of healing some sickness.
14. The kiss of etiquette.
15. The kiss of love—the only real kiss. But this was also to be variously considered; viz., given by ardent enthusiasm, as by lovers; by matrimonial affection; or, lastly, between two men—an awful kiss, tasting like sandwiches without butter or meat.

[rajnish manga]

YE ANCIENT DOCTOR

“Each son of Sol, to make him look more big,
Wore an enormous, grave, three-tailed wig;

His clothes full trimmed, with button-holes behind;
Stiff were the skirts, with buckram stoutly lined;

The cloth-cut velvet, or more reverend black,
Full made and powdered half way down his back;

Large muslin cuffs, which near the ground did reach,
With half a dozen buttons fixed to each.

Grave were their faces—fixed in solemn state;
These men struck awe; their children carried weight.

In reverend wigs old heads young shoulders bore;
And twenty-five or thirty seemed threescore.”

[rajnish manga]

Beauty and the Beast

I heard, while in the South, of a doctor, a little, short man, who rode a Canadian horse, a scraggy little specimen, and who, in yellow fever time, used to ride right straight into a drug store, and order his prescription, catch it up, wheel his pony round on his hind legs, stick in the spurs into the flanks of the animal, and go out in a clean gallop.

Though the writer never saw this remarkable feat, there is one more ludicrous, to which he was an eye-witness.

One fine day, while in Charleston, sitting musing in the window of the Victoria Hotel, I saw an African, with bare feet and legs, his whole attire consisting of a coarse shirt and brief trousers, drive a mule attached to a dray, on which was a box, up towards a milliner’s store, opposite. The negro jumped from the dray, and, with whip in hand, ran into the store to ascertain if that was the place to leave the box.
The faithful donkey followed his master directly into the store, nor stopped till the wheels of the cart brought up against the door-jambs.
>>>

[rajnish manga]

The ladies, with whom the front store was crowded, screamed with terror, and fled towards the back room, where the pretty milliner girls were sewing. They caught the panic and sight of the donkey’s head and ears in the front shop, and screeched in chorus. A more lively and lovely stampede I never witnessed. It was “Beauty and the Beast,” and the beast stood pulling his best to get the cart through; but since a six-foot cart never could go through a four foot doorway, he backed out with the negro’s assistance, and Beauty was rescued from the perilous situation.

“Golly!” exclaimed the Buckee, when himself, mule and cart were back into the street. “I fought de ladies were scared ob dis chile, first sight; but I never knowed de ladies to be scared ob a hansum darky like me; and when I looked round an’ see dat ar’ mules coming into der mill’ner’s store—O, yah, yah, yah! I shall die—O, yah, yah, yah!—de Lor’—to only fink ob it, a mule in a mill’ner’s shop—he wants muslin—O, yah, yah! I shall die, sure.” Then, after a few more outbursts, he stopped short—for the milliner was looking after the box—he rolled up his eyes very solemnly, and said to the donkey,—

“Yer ought to be ’shamed ob yerself to go into dat yer store—dar, take dat!” levelling a blow at the donkey’s head with the whip. Then taking the box into the store, he returned, gave the donkey another solemn lecture on his impropriety, and mounted the dray and drove away.

[rajnish manga]

Silent Eloquence

There is a physician doing an office practice in Boston, who, when you enter his office, by one gesture and movement of his head, with the accompanying expression of his countenance, says to you, as plainly as words, “Take a seat; how do you do? State your case.” He is a man of few words, professionally. Through with his business, he becomes one of the most sociable men with whom one need wish to meet.

John Abernethy was remarkable for his eccentricity, and brevity in his dealings with patients. Sometimes he met his match. The following has been told about him often enough to be true. On one occasion a lady, who doubtless had heard of his brusque characteristic, entered his consulting-room, at Bedford Row, and silently presented a sore finger. As silently the doctor examined and dressed the wound. In the same manner the lady deposited the accustomed fee upon the table, and withdrew.

Again she presented the finger for inspection.

“Better?” grunted the great surgeon.

“Better,” quietly answered the lady, deposited the fee, and left, without saying another word. Several visits were thus made, when, on presenting it for the last time, Abernethy said,—

“Well?”

“Well,” was the lady’s only answer, and deposited her last fee.

“Well, madam, upon my soul, you are the most sensible lady with whom I ever met,” he exclaimed, and very politely bowed her out.

[rajnish manga]

The Tables turned


Sometimes the doctor’s oddity seemed to be in his silence, again in asking “outlandish” questions. Often they get a good return; for instance,—

Dr. G., of Sycamore, Ill., riding in the country one day, saw a sign upon a gate-post, reading thus: “This farm for sail.” Stopping his horse, he hailed a little old woman, who stood on tiptoe, hanging out clothes.

“I say, madam, when is this farm going to sail?”

“Just as soon, sir,” replied the old lady, placing her thumb to her nose, “as anybody comes along who can raise the wind.”

The doctor drove thoughtfully on.

[rajnish manga]

The Difference

“A priest who was jogging along on an ass was overtaken by a loquacious doctor, and, after some preliminary conversation as to the destination, etc., the doctor proposed that they each should ask a question, and the one who proposed the best should receive hospitality at the other’s expense at the next town. The priest agreed, for he was a fat, jolly little fellow, who could enjoy a laugh and “some bottles,” even at a doctor’s expense. So the doctor proposed the following:—

“What is the difference between a priest and a jackass?”

“That’s old,” replied the priest. “One wears his cross on his breast, the other on his back.—Now for my turn. What is the difference between the doctor and the ass?”

“I cannot tell,” replied the doctor; “what is the difference?”

“I see none,” quietly replied the priest.

[rajnish manga]

Not by Bread alone

A physician in P., who had the reputation of being a high liver, was quite publicly reprimanded for his gluttony by an advent preacher of some note, not a thousand miles from Boston. The doctor bore his abuse without flinching, though he believed the man a hypocrite. A long time afterwards, he met the Adventist in his town, and, after some conversation, invited him to dine at his own house. The hungry Grahamite accepted, and at an early moment found himself at the doctor’s board.

“Will you ask a blessing?” said the doctor; which request being complied with, he uncovered one of the only two dishes on the table, which contained nothing but bread. The preacher saw the point, and said, with a disappointed grin, “You shall not live by bread alone.”

“Yes; I know that much Scripture,” replied the doctor; “so I have provided some butter,” uncovering the other dish!