Luck On Wall Street

While eating lunch the other day with prominent broker, 1 chanced to ask hlm bout the stock market. Befora the queon was out of tny mouth hls hand went indar the table like a flash and three omlous raps greeted my inquiry. "Spirits?" said I, distrustfully eyeing dm, "Luck," he answered, slpping his coffee. I rapped for luck, as every sensible man iumld when tht market is referred to in restauran t. " Outside the ctrcle of Spiritualists hunreds of prominent persons are superstious. We consider ourselves at the median of civilization, but, as Emerson lys, we are ouly at the cock crowing anj i morning star Hundreds of peoplfc consult swindlers who cali themselves aa.roloj-ers A large proportion of the po.ulation here believe in signa indicativa At jood luck or i!l luck, or else they belief hat ceitain persons are favored with good ook, while others are uaturally unlucky 'he Rothschilds will have nothing to do with a man whom they consider unlucky. Commodore Vanderbilt, one of the ablest ailroad financiers this country ever prouced, believed In luck. BAD LUCK ON FRIDAY. Hundreds of Intelligent persons have a ' raperstitious reluctance to engage in any i mportant enterprise on Friday This lnludes as cool and matter of fact a mau ai ay Gould. Under no circumstances wiik ' ie use an elevator. The late Jesse Hoyt, 1 be mUlionaire graln merchant, would ever engage in any important business nndertaking on Friday, and many of the ipecuiators on the big exchanges are simiarly superstitious. They consider every íViday a Black Friday. The prejudice .gainst FViday probably dates back to the tïiddle Ages, or to even a remoter period, ,s the day on which Christ was executed. t is only one of innumerable oíd supertitions wh'ich still survive. Many investors and speculators in Wall treet are superstitious about dropping hings If they find themselves constantly xopping articles which they happen to be earrying they take it as a sign that they nust sell their bonds and stocks. Many lave a superstitious fear of holding stocks over a holiday. Some firms will not display the ominous 3 if it happens to be the number of their laces of business. "I confess, " said the manager of a large anking and brokerage house, "that I lave a superstition about the 13th day of he month. It ia not generally a lucky ay. One unlucky instance I remember, ;oo, about Friday A big lake steamer hat plied between Buffalo and Chicago a ïumber of years ago was launched on Yiday. sailed on Friday and sank on Friday." Some stock brokers think it is very good uck to see a hunchback. If they can ouch the deformity it will bring big jains Such a touch is also supposed to cure headaches. To see a negro the first thing in tbe morning is a favorable sign. In the play "Henrietta" a youth who speculates in stocks when asked by his jroker wbether he wishes to buy or sell answers gravely, "1 will consider - it. ". Then he tums his back and tosses a cent 0 determine his course. This is really. 'ounded partly on fact. A person in the ïabit of speculating in stocks found he was losiug steadily At length he hit upon the idea of tossing a half dollar which ho always carried for luck, and if it roved to be "head" he bought the first stock that came out on the tape; if it was 'tail" he sold For a time at least he was far more successful by this method than he bad ever been through the exercise of commou sense. TUE WUONQ FOOT FOREMOST. Some persons on rising in the morning nave a superstitious fear of putting the eft foot out of bed first. Others believe n always putting on the left shoe first. if they meet a negro or a cross eyed woman they spit for good luck. Everyaody wants to piek up a horseshoe. On the Cotton Exchange there is one jrominent member who consulta the "spirits" for points on the market. On a dark day, when the gas is lighted, some of the brokers consider it a sign that the market will advance. Others say it is jood luck to meet a Sister of Charity. "I shouldn't care," said a popular oil operator, "to be long of 13,000 barrels of oil here and short that much in Oil City. 1 would make it 14,000 at all hazards. Of course it is all nonsense, but I should feel better to change the figures at once. Then 1 have an unlucky suit of clothes. It may sound laughable, but it is so. I have a fine gray suit at home which I have only worn four or five times in the last three years, and it has already cost me ten times what I gave for it. I borrowed a diamond ring from a friend and thought it inight give me luck. It was just the reverse. As snre as I wear that diamond ring the market breaks. Another thing, I never trade on Friday if I have seen that day a cross eyed woman or a red headed man. " One of the best known traders in the oil ring of the Consolidated Exchange will never cross a street diagonally, but always at right angles. Between Wall street and Exchange place on narrow New street, on which both Stock Exchanges abut, the brokers walk in the middle of the street about as much as they do on the sidewalks; but the oil operator referred to álwaya keeps carefully to the sidewalks, and if he has occasion to cross at the intersection of another street altakes in each corner on the way rather than cut across cata-comered. He has a Germán coin that he could not be induced to seU. It gives good luck. Hundreds of brokers on the two Stock Exchanges consider that they have their lucky suits of clothes. On the Consolidated Exchange, especially in the shouting, gesticulating, pushing and rollicking oil group, it is considered a very bad omen to open an umbrella and raise it over the head. Putting up an umbrella iii a board room would seern under all circumstances to be unnecessary. It is worse It brings bad luck. There is a skeptical wag in the crowd, however, who on dull days, when the brokers are ïkylarking. will raise an umbrella and run into the trading ring and hold it over as many traders as he can. They scamper like a üock of frightened sheep.- New York Cor. Democrat.