PT Barnum on superstition. Conspiracy theories and fake news aren't new, and he knew all about it.

In the summer of 1868, a lady, who happened to be at that time an inmate of my family, upon hearing me say that I supposed we must remove into our summer residence on Thursday, because our servants might not like to go on Friday¹, remarked:

'What nonsense that is! It is astonishing that some persons are so foolish as to think there is any difference in the days. I call it rank heathenism to be so superstitious as to think one day is lucky and another unlucky;' and then, in the most innocent manner possible, she added: 'Still, I would not like to remove on a Saturday myself, for they say people who remove on the last day of the week don't stay long.'

Of course, this was too refreshing a case of undoubted superstition to be permitted to pass without a hearty laugh from all who heard it.

I suppose most of us have certain superstitions, imbibed in our youth, and still lurking more or less faintly in our minds. Many would not like to acknowledge that they had any choice whether they commenced a new enterprise on a Friday, or on a Monday, or whether they first saw the new moon over the right or left shoulder. And yet, perhaps a large portion of these same persons will be apt to observe it when they happen to do anything which popular superstition calls 'unlucky.' It is a common occurrence with many to immediately make a secret 'wish' if they happen to use the same expression at the same moment when a friend with whom they are conversing makes it; nevertheless, these persons would protest against being considered superstitious – indeed, probably they are not so in the full meaning of the word.

Several years ago, an old lady, who was a guest at my house, remarked on a rainy Sunday:

'This is the first Sunday in the month, and now it will rain every Sunday in the month; that is a sign which never fails, for I have noticed it many a time.'

'Well,' I remarked, smiling, 'watch closely this time, and if it rains on the next three Sundays, I will give you a new silk dress.'

She was in high glee, and replied:

'Well, you have lost that dress sure as you are born.'

The following Sunday it did, indeed, rain.

'Ah! ah!' exclaimed the old lady, 'what did I tell you? I knew it would rain.'

I smiled, and said, 'All right; watch for next Sunday.'

And surely enough the next Sunday it did rain, harder than on either of the preceding Sundays.

'Now what do, you think? ' said the old lady, solemnly. 'I tell you that sign never fails. It won't do to doubt the ways of Providence,' she added, with a sigh, 'for His ways are mysterious and past finding out.'

The following Sunday, the sun rose in a cloudless sky, and not the slightest appearance of rain was manifested through the day. The old lady was greatly disappointed, and did not like to hear any allusion to the subject; but two years afterwards, when she was once more my guest, it again happened to rain on the first Sunday in the month, and I heard her solemnly predict that it would every succeeding Sunday in the month, 'for,' she remarked, 'it is a sign that never
fails.' She had forgotten the failure of two years before; indeed, the continuance and prevalence of many popular superstitions is due to the fact that we notice the 'sign' when it happens to be verified, and do not observe it, or we forget it, when it fails. Many persons are exceedingly superstitious in regard to the number ' thirteen.' This is particularly the case, I have noticed, in Catholic countries I have visited, and I have been told that superstition originated in the fact of a thirteenth apostle having been chosen on account of the treachery of Judas. At any rate, I have
known numbers of French persons who had quite a horror of this fatal number. Once I knew a French lady, who had taken passage in an ocean steamer, and who on going aboard, and finding her assigned state-room to be 'No. 13,' insisted upon it that she would not sail in the ship at all; she had rather forfeit her passage money, though, finally, she was persuaded to take another room. And a great many people, French, English and American, will not undertake any important enterprise on the thirteenth day of the month, nor sit at table with a full complement of thirteen persons. With regard to this number, to which so many superstitions cling, I have some interesting experiences and curious coincidences, which are worth relating, as a part of my personal history.

When I was first in England with General Tom Thumb, I well remember dining one Christmas Day with my friends, the Brettells, in St. James's Palace, in London. Just before
the dinner was finished (it is a wonder it was not noticed before) it was discovered that the number at table was exactly thirteen.

'How very unfortunate,' remarked one of the guests; 'I would not have dined under such circumstances for any consideration, had I known it!'

'Nor I either,' seriously remarked another guest.

'Do you really suppose there is any truth in the old superstition on that subject? ' I asked.

'Truth!' solemnly replied an old lady. 'Truth! Why I myself have known three instances, and have heard of scores of others, where thirteen persons have eaten at the same table, and in every case one of the number died before the year was out! '

This assertion, made with so much earnestness, evidently affected several of the guests, whose nerves were easily excited. I can truthfully state, however, that I dined at the Palace again the following Christmas, and although there were seventeen persons present, every one of the original thirteen who dined there the preceding Christmas, was among this number, and all in good health; although, of course, it would have been nothing very remarkable if one had happened to have died during the last twelve months.

While I was on my Western lecturing tour in 1866, long before I got out of Illinois, I began to observe that at the various hotels where I stopped my room very frequently was number thirteen. Indeed, it seemed as if this number turned up to me as often as four times per week, and so, before many days, I almost expected to have that number set down to my name wherever I signed it upon the register of the hotel. Still, I laughed to myself, at what I was convinced was simply a coincidence. On one occasion I was travelling from Clinton to Mount Vernon, Iowa, and was to lecture in the college of the latter place that evening. Ordinarily, I should have arrived at two o'clock p.m.; but owing to an accident which had occurred to the train from the West, the
conductor informed me that our arrival in Mount Vernon would probably be delayed until after seven o'clock. I telegraphed that fact to the committee who were expecting me, and told them to be patient.

When we had arrived within ten miles of that town it was dark. I sat rather moodily in the car, wishing the train would 'hurry up;' and happening for some cause to look back over my left shoulder, I discovered the new moon through the window. This omen struck me as a coincident
addition to my ill-luck, and with a pleasant chuckle I muttered to myself, 'Well, I hope I won't get room number thirteen tonight, for that will be adding insult to injury.'

I reached Mount Vernon a few minutes before eight, and was met at the depot by the committee, who took me in a carriage and hurried to the Ballard House. The committee told me the hall in the college was already crowded, and they hoped I would defer taking tea until after the lecture. I informed them that I would gladly do so, but simply wished to run to my room a moment for a wash. While wiping my face I happened to think about the new room, and at once stepped outside of my bed-room door to look at the number. It was 'number thirteen.'

After the lecture I took tea, and I confess that I began to think 'number thirteen' looked a little ominous. There I was, many hundreds of miles from my family; I left my wife sick, and I began to ask myself, Does ''number thirteen' portend anything in particular? Without feeling willing even now to acknowledge that I felt much apprehension on the subject, I must say I began .to take a serious view of things in general.

I mentioned the coincidence of my luck, in so often having 'number thirteen' assigned to me, to Mr. Ballard, the proprietor of the hotel, giving him all the particulars to date.

'I will give you another room, if you prefer it,' said Mr. Ballard.

'No, I thank you,' I replied with a semi-serious smile; 'if it is fate, I will take it as it comes; and if it means anything, I shall probably find it out in time.' That same night, before retiring to rest, I wrote a letter to the Rev. Abel C. Thomas, then residing in Bridgeport, telling him all my experiences in regard to 'number thirteen.' I said to him in closing: 'Don't laugh at me for being superstitious, for I hardly feel so; I think it is simply a series of 'coincidences ' which appear the more strange because I am sure to notice every one that occurs.' Ten days afterward I received an answer from my reverend friend, in which he cheerfully said : 'It's all right; go ahead and get 'number thirteen' as often as you can. It is a lucky number,' and he added:

'Unbelieving and ungrateful man! What is thirteen but the traditional baker's' dozen, ndicating 'good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over²,' as illustrated in your triumphal lecturing tour? By all means insist upon having room number thirteen at every hotel; and if the guests at any meal be less than that charmed complement, send out and compel somebody to come in.

'What do you say respecting the Thirteen Colonies³? Any ill-luck in the number? Was the patriarch Jacob afraid of it when he adopted Ephraim and Manasseh, the two sons of Joseph, so as to complete the magic circle of thirteen?

'Do you not know that chapter thirteen of First Corinthians is the grandest in the Bible⁴, with verse thirteen as the culmination of all religious thought? And can you read verse thirteen of the fifth chapter of Revelation⁵ without the highest rapture?'

But my clerical friend had not heard of a certain curious circumstance which occurred to me after I had mailed my letter to him and before I received his answer.

On leaving Mount Vernon for Cedar Rapids the next morning, the landlord, Mr. Ballard, drove me to the railroad depot. As I was stepping upon the cars, Mr. Ballard shook my hand, and with a laugh exclaimed : 'Good-bye, friend Barnum, I hope you won't get room number thirteen at Cedar Rapids to-day.' 'I hope not,' I replied, earnestly, and yet with a smile. I reached Cedar Rapids in an hour. The lecture committee met and took me to the hotel. I entered my name, and the landlord immediately called out to the porter:

'Here, John, take Mr. Barnum's baggage, and show him to ' number thirteen!''

I confess that when I heard this I was startled. I remarked to the landlord that it was certainly very singular, but was nevertheless true, that 'number thirteen' seemed to be about the only room I could get in a hotel.

'We have a large meeting of railroad directors here at present,' he replied, 'and 'number thirteen' is the only room unoccupied in my house.'

I proceeded to the room, and immediately wrote to Mr. Ballard at Mount Vernon, assuring him that my letter was written in 'number thirteen,' and that this was the only room I could get in the hotel. During the remainder of my journey, I was put into 'number thirteen ' so often in the various hotels at which I stopped, that it came to be quite a matter of course, though occasionally I was fortunate enough to secure some other number. Upon returning to New York, I related the foregoing adventures to my family, and told them I was really half afraid of 'number thirteen.' Soon afterwards, I telegraphed to my daughter, who was boarding at the Atlantic House in Bridgeport, asking her to engage a room for me to lodge there the next night, on my way to Boston. 'Mr. Hale,' said she to the landlord, 'father is coming up to-day; will you please reserve him a comfortable room?' Certainly,' replied Mr. Hale, and he instantly ordered a fire in 'room thirteen!' I went to Boston, and proceeded to Lewiston, Maine, and thence to Lawrence, Massachusetts, and the hotel register there has my name booked for 'number thirteen.'

My experience with this number has by no means been confined to apartments. In 1867 a church in Bridgeport wanted to raise several thousand dollars in order to get free from debt. I subscribed one thousand dollars, by aid of which they assured me they would certainly raise enough to pay off the debt. A few weeks subsequently, however, one of the 'brethren' wrote me that they were still six hundred dollars short, with but little prospect of getting it. I replied that I would pay one-half of the sum required. The brother soon afterwards wrote me that he had obtained the other half, and I might forward him my subscription of ' thirteen' hundred dollars. During the same season I attended a fair in Franklin Hall, Bridgeport, given by a temperance organisation. Two of my little grand-daughters accompanied me, and, telling them to select what articles they desired, I paid the bill, twelve dollars and fifty cents. Whereupon I said to the children, 'I am glad you did not make it thirteen dollars, and I will expend no more here to-night.' We sat awhile listening to the music, and finally started for home, and, as we were going, a lady at one of the stands near the door, called out: ' Mr. Barnum, you have not patronised me. Please take a chance on my lottery.' 'Certainly,' I replied; 'give me a ticket.' I paid her the price (fifty cents), and after I arrived home, I discovered that in spite of my expressed determination to the
contrary, I had expended exactly 'thirteen' dollars!

I invited a few friends to a 'clam-bake' in the summer of 1868, and, being determined the party should not be thirteen, I invited fifteen, and they all agreed to go. Of course, one man and his wife were 'disappointed,' and could not go – and my party numbered thirteen. At Christmas in the same year, my children and grandchildren dined with me, and finding, on 'counting noses,' that they would number the inevitable thirteen, I expressly arranged to have a high chair placed at the table and my youngest grandchild, seventeen months old, was placed in it, so that we should number fourteen. After the dinner was over, we discovered that my son-in-law, Thompson, had been detained down town, and the number at dinner table, notwithstanding my extra precautions, was exactly thirteen.

Thirteen was certainly an ominous number to me in 1865, for on the thirteenth day of July, the American Museum was burned to the ground, and the thirteenth day of November saw the opening of 'Barnum's New American Museum', which was also subsequently destroyed by fire.

Having concluded this veritable history of superstitious coincidences in regard to thirteen, I read it to a clerical friend, who happened to be present; and after reading the manuscript, I paged it, when my friend and I were a little startled to find that the pages numbered exactly thirteen.

From Struggles and Triumphs, or, The Recollections of P.T. Barnum, 1882.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

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