Historical Charms. Human Beings, Animals.

Historical Charms. 

Human Beings, Animals.

Men and women as charms.

IT is a well-established belief that some human beings possess, it may be unconsciously, this same strange power, and are notably lucky or unlucky to those they come into close contact with.

It is stated that the Rothschilds will never employ a man if they know him to have been unlucky. The writer of this work is acquainted with a man who boasts of his power as a mascot for good luck to any one who has dealings with him.

In society Lady Bancroft was always credited with the power of being a mascot ; so much was this believed that many of her friends begged some object from her that she had worn, and to these favoured ones she usually gave a shoe.

Royal sailors who give ill-luck.

Examples of human beings who act as unlucky forces are numerous, and prob- ably the most prominent of these are to be found among those of royal blood who have adopted a sea- faring life as a profession. Among these may be mentioned the Grand Duke Alexis, the Duke of Coburg his brother-in-law, Arch- duke John, of Austria, and the Prince of Leiningen.

To human mascots at the Monte Carlo gaming-tables.

Mr. Darnborough, the successful American player at Monte Carlo, appears to have discovered two human charms. We are told that his luck changed when he substituted a gold pig as a luck-bringer for the two young ladies who always accompanied him as mascots when he played. When he first went to the Casino, he would not play unless he had one of these ladies on each side and a number of stacks of gold pieces in front. Suddenly, he changed his tactics. The ladies dis- appeared, and he put a little gold pig on the table in front of him. Since then he has had little luck.

The charmed name of Hugh Williams.

This same mystic force will often attach itself to a name, irrespective of the temperament of the individual bearing it. In 1664, on December 5th, the ship " Menai '' was crossing the Straits, and capsized in a gale. Eighty-one passengers were on board, and only one was saved. His name was Hugh Williams. On December 5th, 1785, a schooner was wrecked on the Isle of Man. Sixty persons were aboard, among them one Hugh Williams and his family. Only one survived the shock, and that was old Hugh Williams. On August 5th, 1820, a picnicing party on the Thames was run down by a coal barge. Of the twenty-five picnicers, most of whom were under twelve years of age, only one child, aged five, returned to tell the tale. His name was Hugh Williams. On August 19th, 1889, a Leeds coal barge, with nine men, foundered. Two of them were rescued by some fishermen. They were an uncle and his nephew, and both were named Hugh Williams.

The black cat as a luck-bringer.

Turning to animals, we find that the black cat is held in high favour as a luck bringer in Italy ; while many people in England look upon it as a good omen when a strange black cat comes and takes up its residence in the house.

At Cowes, the Kaiser's Cup was won by the Satanita, with Sir Maurice Fitzgerald's black cat on board.

Three black cats are stated to have been taken by Dr. Barton, the aeronaut, on one of his trips, these were carried as luck- bringers.

Mdlle. Nathalie Janotha, court pianist to the German Emperor, possesses a mascot in the form of a cat, which is black, but answers to the name of White-Heather. This cat wears a golden necklet, which has been blessed by the Pope, and he possesses gifts innumerable, for he has visited nearly every European Court, and a tuft of his hair is in possession of most of the crowned heads, who keep it as a charm. One day, while Mdlle. Janotha was playing to Mr. Gladstone, during his last illness, this favoured cat entered the room with a sprig of white heather in his mouth, which he presented to the aged statesman.

The wild cattle of Chartley.

In the Park of Chartley, near Lichfield, a seat of the Ferrers family, was preserved a species of wild cattle. Their colour was white, muzzles black ; the whole of the inside of the ear and about one-third of the outside, from the tip downwards, red ; horns white, with black tips. It is recorded that in the year when the battle of Burton Bridge wag fought and lost, that a black calf was born in this herd, and the downfall of the house of Ferrers happened about the same time. The belief was that the birth of a black or dark-hued calf from this wild herd was a sure sign of death within the same year to a member of the Ferrers family. The Staffordshire Chronicle of July, 1835, says that a calf of this description has been born whenever a death has happened in the family of late years.

The mascot of the Renown, the vessel which conveyed the Prince and Princess of Wales to India in 1905, was a rabbit, which died on the voyage and was con- signed to the waves of the Bay of Biscay.