RAILROAD SUPERSTITION.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3756, 30 July 1883, Page 4

RAILROAD SUPERSTITION.

"Yes, I read that article on stage people and their superstitions," said an Eric conductor, " and I must confess that we railroad men as a class are equally superstitious. I am not speaking about that superstition that clings to one after an accident, but of Jthat possessed by regular railroad men. I know a conductor who wears a long face the whole trip if the first ticket he should take up would be that of a colored man. lie has never had a serious accident, but is always afraid of one when such an occurrence happens. I havo known him to carry it to such an extent that if a colored man should happen to be his first passenger he would sit clown and not gather up tho" tickets until the next station was reached. That's a mild instance, however. A horseshoe is a railroad man's universal insignia of safety. You will scarcely find a freight train on'any of the roads without a horseshoe iv the caboose. Brakcmcn sometimes find a whole ono in their pockets. Engineers are scarcely ever without one in their cab. If anything happens to delay a train on the first four or live miles of its trip, an engineer is always superstitious of bad luck all tho way through. I have known one of them to enter a way telegraph otlice for orders, ancl anticipate an answer to "lay over" just because it was his "off "night. Some engineers get to believing that certain portions of the road are against them, and no matter how nicely their train glides over it they aro apprehensive of clanger or of being late. " Conductors arc tainted with the disease but not so seriously. If the first pasteboard handed to a certain one I know when he starts ou a trip should bo a pass, he is certain that ho will have bad luck during' the whole run. Brakesmen clo not show the symptoms so plainly, because thoy have less to do with the management of tho train, but even they do not escape it. Should a brake-head fly off, an evil omen is conveyed to the mind of somo of tho craft. A train of thirteen cars often gives them tho blues. I have known one to miss a trip because the train he was to run with had that number of cars." —Bradford Star.