In a recent number of the Penny Journal mention is made of the curious coincidence of three men having been found drowned at various times in the course of the same winter, in the same river, and the same place, or nearly, each with _two shirts_ on, having given rise to the belief in that parish that it was unlucky to wear two shirts. But if persons should allow themselves to be guided in their actions by such observances, their lives would become perfectly burthensome from the constant state of watchfulness in which they would be obliged to live; for instance, the following anecdote would show the absolute necessity they would be under of ascertaining the names of their fellow-travellers, lest any one rejoicing in the name of Hugh Williams should be amongst them. The more juvenile readers of the Penny Journal must be informed that the portion of the sea which flows between the island of Anglesea and the coast of Wales, called the Menai Straits, which is now spanned by the celebrated Menai suspension bridge, was passable, previously to the erection of the bridge, only by boats, a regular ferry-boat plying constantly at the place called Bangor ferry. On the 6th day of December, in the year 1664, the ferry-boat, having eighty-one passengers on board, was upset whilst crossing the Strait, and only one man was saved, whose name was Hugh Williams. On the 6th day of December 1782, the boat then plying, containing about sixty persons, was upset, and all were lost excepting one passenger, whose name proved to be Hugh Williams. On the 5th of August 1820, a similar fate befell twenty-five unfortunate persons, one only of whom escaped, whose name was Hugh Williams! We should hope that none could now be found so weak, but certainly there have been those who, having heard this story, would fear to trust their precious lives in a ferry-boat with any one of the name of Hugh Williams, but a little local knowledge would go far in removing such an absurd apprehension, as indeed there are few of the most apparently extraordinary events, the origin of which cannot be traced to simple natural causes. The name of Williams prevails in the neighbourhood of Bangor, and Hugh is a favourite Christian name throughout all Wales. It is very probable that persons of the name of Williams, very possibly even Hugh Williams, were lost amongst the passengers on each of those occasions, but these were overlooked, whilst the coincidence of the individual saved being each time of the same name, was observed and recorded; the circumstance being simply accounted for by the ordinary rules of calculating odds or chances, for where the name of Hugh Williams prevailed, there was certainly a greater chance of one of that name being saved than one of any other, and, as we have before remarked, no account was made of how many Hugh Williamses perished. N. * * * * *