QUEER FANCIES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1756, 28 June 1888, Page 4

QUEER FANCIES.

Some eminent specialists maintain that one-third of mankind, are crazy and ought to be in asjlums. Dr Johnson would have been considered insane because he insisted on touching all the gateposts he passed in London.

There is a well-known literary man in London now who has the same habit He admits that the tendency is almost irresistible. Sometimes, when he is approaching a gatepost which he cannot touch, because it is surrounded by other people, he will turn back and go, some other way. He will stop in the hardest rain-storm to put his finger on a post. This eccentricity has got him into a predicament more than once. The owner of a house in the West End once pursued him and demanded to know why he had tampered with his gate, threatening to call the police. On one occasion, while travelling in the country, he rode back a mile to touch-a gate which he had passed and omitted to touch. ,

The late Secretary Folger, of the United .States House of Representatives had an idea that there was a charm in the figure 3. When a boy, and later on in life, he had a; fashion of doing a thing three times that only had to be done once.' He would eat three peaches—no more and no less. If he had four he would throw one away. If he should eat more than three he would eat twice three or three: times three. If he was to ride on horseback he would mount three times before starting. Up to his death be had a way of saying “ goodday ” three times to those he met, and in letters to his family he invariably wrote on three pages. Judge Folger often alluded to the idiosyncracy. He said that from his earliest remembrance he had had an overpowering belief in tne cabalistic power of the number 3. He thought it had been transmitted to him from his father, or that he had received it from a superstitious nurse. When a small boy he walked a mile to school, and he afterwards acknowledged that he had, on m >re than one day, traversed the distance three times, making six miles in all. before he felt safe in entering the schoolhouse,

It was said of Thomas Jefferson that he would neyer permit any person to cut his hair. He used the scissors himself. He had a superstition that his strength would depart if ho allowed anyone else to cut his hair. The late Theodore Stevens could not pass a pin without picking it up. Furthermore, he always walked round, if necessary, to get the point towards him before picking it up. , The venerable philanthropist, Mr W. W. Corcoran, will not sit down until he has raised the chair.