The origin of the superstition is very generally supposed to be the “Last Supper,” at which the Lord and His Twelve Apostles were present. As a matter of history, the belief in the “hoodoo” antedates Christianity by centuries. Norse mythology deemed it unlucky to sit down thirteen at a banquet table, because at such a feast in the Valhalla, Loki, the spirit of evil and the god of strife, once intruded. Balder, the god of peace, was killed by the blind war-god Hoder, at the instigation of Loki.
The Turks so dislike the number that the word indicating it has become almost expurged from their vocabulary. The Italians never use it in making up their lotteries, and in Paris no house bears the number; and there is in existence there a profession the members of which make their living attending dinner parties in order to make the fourteenth at table.
At a discussion of superstitions recently one young man ventured the remark that he knew of hundreds of buildings in New York that had no thirteenth story.
“How is that?” he was asked.
“They are only twelve stories high,” was the reply.
Nevertheless, there are several skyscrapers in the metropolis in which the number thirteen is skipped both in numbering the floors and in numbering the rooms. The Kuhn-Loeb Building, at the corner of Pine and William Streets, is an example, and the building at the corner of William and Wall Streets has a twelfth floor and a fourteenth floor, but no floor in between.
THE STORY OF THE KILKENNY CATS.
Hessian Soldiers, Stationed in Ireland, Were Responsible for One of the Most Desperate Battles in History.
For more than a century the Kilkenny cats, which “fought until there was nothing left of them but their tails,” have been regarded as the most quarrelsome creatures of which there is any record.
Various accounts of their memorable encounter have appeared from time to time, but the version which is given the most credence is that offered by a writer in the Irish Nation. This story is as follows: