OCR Text |
Show THE FATAL THIRTEEN. A Story, Which May Not Be True, That Will Be Food For the Superstitious. Thirteen members of the Sprcdel Fishing club of Buffalo defied the old superstition one sultry day last August, embarked in a yacht belonging to one of the party and made a day of it down the river. They visited Home of the pleasure resorts on Grand island, ate a fine lunch, drank much beer and returned re-turned to the city about 10 o'clock in the evening. As evidenco of what they had done they sat before a photographer at Sour Spring Grove and had a group picture made. The photograper was ordered or-dered to strike off 13 copies, one for each member, and then destroy the negative. The Sprudels is a great social-political organization of Buffalo. It has nearly near-ly 1,000 members. Last winter it secured se-cured the big Broadway arsenal and gave a ball for charity, which was attended at-tended by 10,000 people. The 13 men who made the trip were all comparatively young men, not one over 42, and all robust and healthy. Within two months three of them have died suddenly. The first of the 13 to go was Michael North, a wholesale cigar dealer. He caught cold in tho early winter, had a hemorrhage of the lungs and died suddenly. He was 42 years old and a man of strong constitution. About two weeks later the Sprudels were shocked to learn of the sudden death of Albert Baetzhold. He went into the 6treet while in a heated condition after a contest in a bowline alley, caucht cold and was carried off by pneumonia in two days. Ho was 31 years old, nearly 6 feet high, weighed 180 pounds and had the red cheeks of a girl. The third to die was the man of all the members of the club whom an insurance company would pick out as the best risk. Ho was Herman H. Kamper, an amateur athlete, ath-lete, a man who never dissipated, 0 feet tall, splendidly proportioned and 30 years old. Pneumonia killed him in two days. The rest of the 13 began to feel uncomfortable. un-comfortable. One day, while looking at the picture taken at Sour Spring Grove, it struck John Schwabl as a remarkable fact that the three men who had died stood in the front row in the picture. He communicated his discovery to the others. When the picture was taken, the men stood four in row, with tho thirteenth thir-teenth man in tho rear. Buffalo Dispatch Dis-patch in New York Sun. |