Social Superstitions

1895

"Hurry up, Katie," urged Mabel as she sat in her friend's morning room waiting for her to don her wraps for a promenade. For answer Miss Katie stopped short in her rapid circuit of the room and began to whistle shrilly.

"What is that for?" asked Mabel. "The dog?"

"No. For my gloves."

"But you surely don't expect your gloves to come in answer to a whistle?" asked her amazed chum.

"Yes, I do — that is, I will find them as soon as I whistle for them. There they are now. If they were bears, they would have eaten me, but I never saw them until I whistled for them."

"Well, I never!" gasped her friend.

"It's true," responded Katie, "every time. Don't sailors whistle when they want to raise the wind, and doesn't it come? It's a scientific fact, dear."

But the friend, who was not up in scientific facts, called it superstition. — Detroit Free Press.


Sicily

Dioscorides says that in Sicily in his time the rock oil or petroleum was collected and burned in lamps.