One hundred years ago
THE Daily Telegraph has sunk a shaft once more into the great reservoir of letters, but this time little oil is forth- coming, or, rather, the oil is not of a good quality. A Welsh Coroner's jury a few days since ascertained on inquiry that a man had been accidentally shot dead with a gun, and that by an odd coincidence the gun which shot him — we use the active voice advisely — had previously shot another human being. They therefore, while finding a verdict of death by misadventure, condemned the gun, and ordered it to be destroyed. The Telegraph thereupon opened its columns to letters upon the popular view of luck, and the letters came in some quantity; but they are not interest- ing letters. They describe, and in some cases defined, a great variety of popular superstitions, few of them quite novel; but they do not tell us, as we should like to be told, either the popular view or the popular explanation of the belief that good luck or ill luck can attach itself as a permanent and indwelling quality to an inanimate thing.
The Spectator, 14 January 1888
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