Popular Superstitions: Thirteen at table (colour litho)

Thirteen at table. Perhaps of all superstitions none has greater strength to-day than that which holds that if thirteen people sit down to table one of them will die within the year. The idea undoubtedly has its origin in the Last Supper. The number of adherents to this superstition was greatly augmented when Matthew Arnold defied it and died within the year. On the other hand, the late Lord Roberts has left it on record that in 1853 he was one of a party of thirteen who dined together at Peshawar. Eleven years later all were still alive, notwithstanding the fact that they had participated in the carnage of the Indian Mutiny. Illustration for one of a set of 25 cigarette cards on the subject of Popular Superstitions issued by Godfrey Phillips in 1930.